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<SngIt0l)  Mtn  of  tttttxs 

EDITED  BY  JOHN  MORLEY 


WOEDSWOKTH- 


BY 

F.  W.  H.  MYEES 

it 


**From  xocrlds  not  quickened  by  the  sun 
A  portion  of  the  gift  is  won 
An  intermingling  of  Heaven^s  pomp  is  spread 
On  ground  which  British  shepherds  tread " 


^    '"»  j^:.    t''    ^    1    J      o'l 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 


ENGLISH  MEN  OF  LETTERS. 

Edited  by  John  Morley. 


Johnson Leslie  Stephen. 

Gibbon J.  C.  Morison. 

Scott R.  H.  Hutton. 

Shbllby J.  A.  Symonds. 

HuMH T.  H.  Huxley. 

Goldsmith William  Black. 

Dhkoe William  Minto. 

Burns J.  C.  Shairp. 

Spknshr R.  W.  Church. 

Thackeray Anthony  Trollope. 

BuRKK John  Morley. 

Milton Mark  Pattison. 

Hawthorne Henry  James,  Jr. 

SouTHEY E.  Dowden. 

Chaucer A.  W.  Ward. 

BuNYAN J.  A.  Froude. 

CowPER Goldwin  Smith. 

Pope Leslie  Stephen. 

Byron John  Nichol. 

Carlyle.  . . 


Locke Thomas  Fowler. 

Wordsworth F.  Myers, 

Dryden G-  Saintsbury. 

Landor Sidney  Colvin. 

De  Quincby David  Masson. 

Lamb Alfred  Ainger. 

Bentlby R.  C.  Jebb. 

Dickens A.  W.  Ward. 

Gray E.  W.  Gosse. 

Swift Leslie  Stephen. 

Sthrnk H.  D.  Traill. 

Macaulay J.  Cotter  Morison. 

Fielding Austin  Dobson. 

Sheridan Mrs.  Olipliant. 

Addison W.  J .  Courthope. 

Bacon R.  W.  Church. 

Coleridge H.  D.  TrailL 

Sir  Philip  Sidney... J.  A.  Symonds. 

Keats Sidney  Colvin. 

.John  Nichol. 


lamo,  Cloth,  75  cents  per  volum*. 
Other  volumes  in  preparation. 


Published  hyHAR^'Er',^' BROTHERS,  Nbw  York. 

^ny\oJ' tl--f  chbve  wotki  will  be  ssnt  by  *Hail,  postage  prepaid,  to  any  Pari 
,'  ■•  '(tf]ih*  Ifffii^J'States,  CanaJa^.'or  Mexico,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


HM^ 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  ,,^„ 

Birth  and  Education. — Cambridge ,    ,      1 


CHAPTER  II. 
Residence  in  London  and  in  France   .,.,..    15 

CHAPTER  III. 

Miss  Wordsworth. — Lyrical  Ballads. — Settlement 
AT  Grasmere 25 

CHAPTER  rV. 
The  English  Lakes 38 

CHAPTER  V. 
Marriage. — Society. — Highland  Tour 55 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Sir  George  Beaumont. — Death  of  John  Wordsworth    65 

CHAPTER  VII. 
*'  Happy  Warrior,"  and  Patriotic  Poems 74 


vi  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VIII.  „,^, 

PAGE 

Children. — Life  at  Rydal  Mount, — " The  Excursion"    84 


CHAPTER  IX. 
Poetic  Diction. — " Laodamia." — "Evening  Ode"  .    .  103 

CHAPTER  X. 
Natural  Religion 123 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Italian  Tour. — Ecclesiastical   Sonnets. — Polftical 
Views. — Laureateship 153 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Letters  on  The  Kendal  and  Windermere  Railway. 
— Conclusion 3£7 


WORDSWORTH. 

CHAPTER  I. 

BIRTH    AND   EDUCATION. — CAMBRIDGE. 

I  CANNOT,  perhaps,  more  fitly  begin  this  short  biography 
than  with  some  words  in  which  its  subject  has  expressed 
his  own  feelings  as  to  the  spirit  in  which  such  a  task 
should  be  approached.  "Silence,"  says  Wordsworth,  "is 
a  privilege  of  the  grave,  a  right  of  the  departed :  let  him, 
therefore,  who  infringes  that  right  by  speaking  publicly 
of,  for,  or  against  those  who  cannot  speak  for  themselves, 
take  heed  that  he  opens  not  his  mouth  without  a  suffi- 
cient sanction.  Only  to  philosophy  enlightened  by  the  af- 
fections does  it  belong  justly  to  estimate  the  claims  of  the 
deceased,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  present  age  and  fut- 
ure generations,  on  the  other,  and  to  strike  a  balance  be- 
tween them.  Such  philosophy  runs  a  risk  of  becoming 
extinct  among  us,  if  the  coarse  intrusions  into  the  recesses, 
the  gross  breaches  upon  the  sanctities,  of  domestic  life,  to 
which  we  have  lately  been  more  and  more  accustomed,  are 
to  be  regarded  as  indications  of  a  vigorous  state  of  public 
feeling.  The  wise  and  good  respect,  as  one  of  the  noblest 
characteristics  of  Englishmen,  that  jealousy  of  familiar  ap- 


2   ';  ■  WORDSWORTH.  [chip. 

proach  which,  while  it  contributes  to  the  maintenance  of 
private  dignity,  is  one  of  the  most  efficacious  guardians  of 
rational  public  freedom." 

In  accordance  with  these  views  the  poet  entrusted  to 
his  nephew,  the  present  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  the  task  of 
composing  memoirs  of  his  life,  in  the  just  confidence  that 
nothing  would  by  such  hands  be  given  to  the  world  which 
was  inconsistent  with  the  dignity  either  of  the  living  or 
of  the  dead.  From  those  memoirs  the  facts  contained  in 
the  present  work  have  been  for  the  most  part  drawn.  It 
has,  however,  been  my  fortune,  through  hereditary  friend- 
ships, to  have  access  to  many  manuscript  letters  and  much 
oral  tradition  bearing  upon  the  poet's  private  life;^  and 
some  details  and  some  passages  of  letters  hitherto  unpub- 
lished will  appear  in  these  pages.  It  would  seem,  how- 
ever, that  there  is  but  little  of  public  interest  in  Words- 
worth's life  which  has  not  already  been  given  to  the  world, 
and  I  have  shrunk  from  narrating  such  minor  personal  in- 
cidents as  he  would  himself  have  thought  it  needless  to 
dwell  upon.  I  have  endeavoured,  in  short,  to  write  as 
though  the  Subject  of  this  biography  were  himself  its 
Auditor,  listening,  indeed,  from  some  region  where  all  of 
truth  is  discerned  and  nothing  but  truth  desired,  but  check- 
ing by  his  venerable  presence  any  such  revelation  as  pub- 
lic advantage  does  not  call  for,  and  private  delicacy  would 
condemn. 

As  regards  the  critical  remarks  which  these  pages  con- 
tain, I  have  only  to  say  that  I  have  carefully  consulted 
such  notices  of  the  poet  as  his  personal  friends  have  left 

*  I  take  this  opportunity  of  thanking  Mr.  William  Wordsworth, 
the  son,  and  Mr.  William  Wordsworth,  the  grandson,  of  the  poet,  for 
help  most  valuable  in  enabling  me  to  give  a  true  impression  of  the 
poet's  personality. 


I.]  BIRTH  AND  EDUCATION.  3 

US,  and  also,  I  believe,  nearly  every  criticism  of  importance 
-whicli  has  appeared  on  his  works.  I  find  with  pleasure 
that  a  considerable  agreement  of  opinion  exists — though 
less  among  professed  poets  or  critics  than  among  men  of 
eminence  in  other  departments  of  thought  or  action  whose 
attention  has  been  directed  to  Wordsworth's  poems.  And 
although  I  have  felt  it  right  to  express  in  each  case  my 
own  views  with  exactness,  I  have  been  able  to  feel  that  I 
am  not  obtruding  on  the  reader  any  merely  fanciful  esti- 
mate in  which  better  accredited  judges  would  refuse  to 
concur. 

"Without  further  preface  I  now  begin  my  story  of 
Wordsworth's  life,  in  words  which  he  himself  dictated  to 
his  intended  biographer.  "I  was  born,"  he  said,  "at 
Cockermouth,  in  Cumberland,  on  April  7th,  1770,  the  sec- 
ond son  of  John  Wordsworth,  attorney-at-law — as  lawyers 
of  this  class  were  then  called — and  law-agent  to  Sir  James 
Lowther,  afterwards  Earl  of  Lonsdale.  My  mother  was 
Anne,  only  daughter  of  William  Cookson,  mercer,  of  Pen- 
rith, and  of  Dorothy,  born  Crackanthorp,  of  the  ancient 
family  of  that  name,  who  from  the  times  of  Edward  the 
Third  had  lived  in  Newbiggen  Hall,  Westmoreland.  My 
grandfather  was  the  first  of  the  name  of  Wordsworth  who 
came  into  Westmoreland,  where  he  purchased  the  small 
estate  of  Sockbridge.  He  was  descended  from  a  family 
who  had  been  settled  at  Peniston,  in  Yorkshire,  near  the 
sources  of  the  Don,  probably  before  the  Norman  Conquest. 
Their  names  appear  on  different  occasions  in  all  the  trans- 
actions, personal  and  public,  connected  with  that  parish ; 
and  I  possess,  through  the  kindness  of  Colonel  Beaumont, 
an  almery,  made  in  1525,  at  the  expense  of  a  William 
Wordsworth,  as  is  expressed  in  a  Latin  inscription  carved 
upon  it,  which  carries  the  pedigree  of  the  family  back  four 
1* 


4  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

generations  from  himself.  The  time  of  my  infancy  and 
early  boyhood  was  passed  partly  at  Cockermouth,  and 
partly  with  my  mother's  parents  at  Penrith,  where  my 
mother,  in  the  year  1778,  died  of  a  decline,  brought  on  by 
a  cold,  in  consequence  of  being  put,  at  a  friend's  house  in 
London,  in  what  used  to  be  called  *  a  best  bedroom.'  My 
father  never  recovered  his  usual  cheerfulness  of  mind  af' 
ter  this  loss,  and  died  when  I  was  in  my  fourteenth  year, 
a  school-boy,  just  returned  from  Hawkshead,  whither  I  had 
been  sent  with  my  elder  brother  Richard,  in  my  ninth  year. 
"  I  remember  my  mother  only  in  some  few  situations, 
one  of  which  was  her  pinning  a  nosegay  to  my  breast, 
when  I  was  going  to  say  the  catechism  in  the  church,  as 
was  customary  before  Easter.  An  intimate  friend  of  hers 
told  me  that  she  once  said  to  her  that  the  only  one  of  her 
five  children  about  whose  future  life  she  was  anxious  was 
William;  and  he,  she  said,  would  be  remarkable,  either 
for  good  or  for  evil.  The  cause  of  this  was  that  I  was  of 
a  stiff,  moody,  and  violent  temper;  so  much  so  that  I 
remember  going  once  into  the  attics  of  my  grandfather's 
house  at  Penrith,  upon  some  indignity  having  been  put 
upon  me,  with  an  intention  of  destroying  myself  with  one 
of  the  foils  which  I  knew  was  kept  there.  I  took  the  foil 
in  hand,  but  my  heart  failed.  Upon  another  occasion, 
while  I  was  at  my  grandfather's  house  at  Penrith,  along 
with  my  eldest  brother,  Richard,  we  were  whipping  tops 
together  in  the  large  drawing-room,  on  which  the  carpet 
was  only  laid  down  upon  particular  occasions.  The  walls 
were  hung  round  with  family  pictures,  and  I  said  to  my 
brother,  'Dare  you  strike  your  whip  through  that  old 
lady's  petticoat  V  He  replied, '  No,  I  won't.'  '  Then,'  said 
I, '  here  goes  1'  and  I  struck  my  lash  through  her  hooped 
petticoat;  for  which,  no  doubt,  though  I  have  forgotten 


l]  birth  and  education.  5 

it,  I  was  properly  punished.  But,  possibly  from  some 
want  of  judgment  in  punishments  inflicted,  I  had  become 
perverse  and  obstinate  in  defying  chastisement,  and  rather 
proud  of  it  than  otherwise. 

"  Of  my  earliest  days  at  school  I  have  little  to  say,  but 
that  they  were  very  happy  ones,  chiefly  because  I  was  left 
at  liberty  then,  and  in  the  vacations,  to  read  whatever 
books  I  liked.  For  example,  I  read  all  Fielding's  works, 
Don  Quixote,  Gil  Bias,  and  any  part  of  Swift  that  I  liked 
— Gulliver's  Travels,  and  the  Tale  of  a  Tub,  being  both 
much  to  my  taste.  It  may  be,  perhaps,  as  well  to  mention 
that  the  first  verses  which  I  wrote  were  a  task  imposed  by 
my  master — the  subject.  The  Summer  Vacation;  and  of 
my  own  accord  I  added  others  upon  Return  to  School. 
There  was  nothing  remarkable  in  either  poem ;  but  I  was 
called  upon,  among  other  scholars,  to  write  verses  upon 
the  completion  of  the  second  centenary  from  the  founda- 
tion of  the  school  in  1585  by  Archbishop  Sandys.  These 
verses  were  much  admired — far  more  than  they  deserved, 
for  they  were  but  a  tame  imitation  of  Pope's  versification, 
and  a  little  in  his  style." 

But  it  was  not  from  exercises  of  this  kind  that  Words- 
worth's school-days  drew  their  inspiration.  No  years  of 
his  life,  perhaps,  were  richer  in  strong  impressions ;  but 
they  were  impressions  derived  neither  from  books  nor 
from  companions,  but  from  the  majesty  and  loveliness  of 
the  scenes  around  him ; — from  Nature,  his  life-long  mis- 
tress, loved  with  the  first  heats  of  youth.  To  her  influence 
we  shall  again  recur ;  it  will  be  most  convenient  first  to 
trace  Wordsworth's  progress  through  the  curriculum  of 
ordinary  education. 

It  was  due  to  the  liberality  of  Wordsworth's  two  uncles, 
Richard  Wordsworth  and  Christopher  Crackanthorp  (un- 


6  WORDSWORTH.  [chaf 

der  whose  care  he  and  his  brothers  were  placed  at  their 
father's  death,  in  1783),  that  his  education  was  prolonged 
beyond  his  school-days.  For  Sir  James  Lowther,  after- 
wards Lord  Lonsdale — whose  agent  Wordsworth's  father, 
Mr.  John  Wordsworth,  was — becoming  aware  that  his  agent 
had  about  5000Z.  at  the  bank,  and  wishing,  partly  on  polit- 
ical grounds,  to  make  his  power  over  him  absolute,  had 
forcibly  borrowed  this  sum  of  him,  and  then  refused  to 
repay  it.  After  Mr.  John  Wordsworth's  death  much  of 
the  remaining  fortune  which  he  left  behind  him  was  wasted 
in  efforts  to  compel  Lord  Lonsdale  to  refund  this  sum ; 
but  it  was  never  recovered  till  his  death  in  1801,  when  his 
successor  repaid  8500^.  to  the  Wordsworths,  being  a  full 
acquittal,  with  interest,  of  the  original  debt.  The  fortunes 
of  the  Wordsworth  family  were,  therefore,  at  a  low  ebb  in 
1*787,  and  much  credit  is  due  to  the  uncles  who  discerned 
the  talents  of  William  and  Christopher,  and  bestowed  a 
Cambridge  education  on  the  future  Poet  Laureate,  and  the 
future  Master  of  Trinity. 

In  October,  1787,  then,  Wordsworth  went  up  as  an  un- 
dergraduate to  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge.  The  first 
court  of  this  College,  in  the  south-western  corner  of  which 
were  Wordsworth's  rooms,  is  divided  only  by  a  narrow 
lane  from  the  Chapel  of  Trinity  College,  and  his  first 
memories  are  of  the  Trinity  clock,  telling  the  hours  "  twice 
over,  with  a  male  and  female  voice,"  of  the  pealing  organ, 
and  of  the  prospect  when 

"  From  my  pillow  looking  forth,  by  light 
Of  moon  or  favouring  stars  I  could  behold 
The  antechapel,  where  the  statue  stood 
Of  Newton  with  his  prism  and  silent  face, 
The  marble  index  of  a  mind  for  ever 
Voyaging  through  strange  seas  of  Thought,  alone." 


I.]  CAMBRIDGE.  1 

For  the  most  part,  the  recollections  which  Wordsworth 
brought  away  from  Cambridge  are  such  as  had  already 
found  expression  more  than  once  in  English  literature ; 
for  it  has  been  the  fortune  of  that  ancient  University  to 
receive  in  her  bosom  most  of  that  long  line  of  poets  who 
form  the  peculiar  glory  of  our  English  speech.  Spenser, 
Ben  Jonson,  and  Marlowe ;  Dryden,  Cowley,  and  Waller ; 
Milton,  George  Herbert,  and  Gray — to  mention  only  the 
most  familiar  names — had  owed  allegiance  to  that  mother 
who  received  Wordsworth  now,  and  Coleridge  and  Byron 
immediately  after  him.  "Not  obvious,  not  obtrusive, 
she ;"  but  yet  her  sober  dignity  has  often  seemed  no  un- 
worthy setting  for  minds,  like  Wordsworth's,  meditative 
without  languor,  and  energies  advancing  without  shock  or 
storm.  Never,  perhaps,  has  the  spirit  of  Cambridge  been 
more  truly  caught  than  in  Milton's  Penseroso ;  for  this 
poem  obviously  reflects  the  seat  of  learning  which  the 
poet  had  lately  left,  just  as  the  Allegro  depicts  the  cheer- 
ful rusticity  of  the  Buckinghamshire  village  which  was  his 
new  home.  And  thus  the  Penseroso  was  understood  by 
Gray,  who,  in  his  Installation  Ode,  introduces  Milton 
among  the  bards  and  sages  who  lean  from  heaven, 

"  To  bless  the  place  where,  on  their  opening  soul, 
First  the  genuine  ardour  stole." 

"  'Twas  Milton  struck  the  deep-toned  shell,"  and  invoked 
with  the  old  ajffection  the  scenes  which  witnessed  his  best 
and  early  years : 

"  Ye  brown  o'er-arching  groves, 
That  contemplation  loves, 
Where  willowy  Camus  lingers  with  delight ! 
Oft  at  the  blush  of  dawn 
I  trod  your  level  lawn, 
Oft  wooed  the  gleam  of  Cynthia  silver-bright 


WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

In  cloisters  dim,  far  from  the  haunts  of  Folly, 

With  Freedom  by  my  side,  and  soft-eyed  Melancholy." 


And  Wordsworth  also  "  on  the  dry  smooth- shaven  green" 
paced  on  solitary  evenings  "  to  the  far-off  curfew's  sound," 
beneath  those  groves  of  forest-trees  among  which  "  Philo- 
mel still  deigns  a  song "  and  the  spirit  of  contemplation 
lingers  still ;  whether  the  silent  avenues  stand  in  the  sum- 
mer twiUght  filled  with  fragrance  of  the  lime,  or  the  long 
rows  of  chestnut  engirdle  the  autumn  river- lawns  with 
walls  of  golden  glow,  or  the  tall  elms  cluster  in  garden  or 
Wilderness  into  towerirfg  citadels  of  green.  Beneath  one 
exquisite  ash-tree,  wreathed  with  ivy,  and  hung  in  autumn 
with  yellow  tassels  from  every  spray, Wordsworth  used  to 
linger  long.     "  Scarcely  Spenser's  self,"  he  tells  us, 

"  Could  have  more  tranquil  visions  in  his  youth, 
Or  could  more  bright  appearances  create 
Of  human  forms  with  supeihuinau  powers, 
Than  I  beheld  loitering  on  calm,  clear  nights 
Alone,  beneath  this  fairv  work  of  earth." 

And  there  was  another  element  in  Wordsworth's  life  at 
Cambridge  more  peculiarly  his  own — that  exultation  which 
a  boy  born  among  the  mountains  may  feel  when  he  per- 
ceives that  the  delight  in  the  external  world  which  the 
mountains  have  taught  him  has  not  perished  by  uprooting, 
nor  waned  for  want  of  nourishment  in  field  or  fen ;  that 
even  here,  where  nature  is  unadorned,  and  scenery,  as  it 
were,  reduced  to  its  elements — where  the  prospect  is  but 
the  plain  surface  of  the  earth,  stretched  wide  beneath  an 
open  heaven — even  here  he  can  still  feel  the  early  glow, 
can  take  delight  in  that  broad  and  tranquil  greenness,  and 
in  the  august  procession  of  the  day. 


I.]  CAMBRIDGE.  9 

"  As  if  awakened,  summoned,  roused,  constrained, 
I  looked  for  universal  things ;  perused 
The  common  countenance  of  earth  and  sky — 
Earth,  nowhere  imembellished  by  some  trace 
Of  that  first  Paradise  whence  man  was  driven  ; 
And  sky,  whose  beauty  and  bounty  are  expressed 
By  the  proud  name  she  bears — the  name  of  Heaven." 

Nor  is  it  only  in  these  open  air  scenes  that  Wordsworth 
has  added  to  the  long  tradition  a  memory  of  his  own. 
The  "  storied  windows  richly  dight,"  which  have  passed 
into  a  proverb  in  Milton's  song,  cast  in  King's  College 
Chapel  the  same  "  soft  chequerings "  upon  their  frame- 
Tfork  of  stone  while  Wordsworth  watched  through  the 
|)auses  of  the  anthem  the  winter  afternoon's  departing  glow : 

"  Martyr,  or  King,  or  sainted  Eremite, 
Whoe'er  ye  be  that  thus,  yourselves  unseen, 
Imbue  your  prison-bars  with  solemn  sheen, 
Shine  on  until  ye  fade  with  coming  Night." 

From  those  shadowy  seats  whence  Milton  had  heard  "  the 
pealing  organ  blow  to  the  full-voiced  choir  below,"  Words- 
worth too  gazed  upon — 

"  That  branching  roof 
Self -poised,  and  scooped  into  ten  thousand  cells 
Where  light  and  shade  repose,  where  music  dwells 
Lingering,  and  wandering  on  as  loth  to  die — 
Like  thoughts  whose  very  sweetness  yieldeth  proof 
That  they  were  bom  for  immortality." 

Thus  much,  and  more,  there  was  of  ennobling  and  un- 
changeable in  the  very  aspect  and  structure  of  that  ancient 
University,  by  which  Wordsworth's  mind  was  bent  towards 
a  kindred  greatness.  But  of  active  moral  and  intellectual 
life  there  was  at  that  time  little  to  be  found  within  her 


10  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

walls.  The  floodtide  of  her  new  life  had  not  yet  set  in; 
she  was  still  slumbering,  as  she  had  slumbered  long,  con- 
tent to  add  to  her  majesty  by  the  mere  lapse  of  genera- 
tions, and  increment  of  her  ancestral  calm.  Even  had  the 
intellectual  life  of  the  place  been  more  stirring,  it  is  doubt- 
ful how  far  Wordsworth  would  have  been  welcomed,  or 
deserved  to  be  welcomed,  by  authorities  or  students.  He 
began  residence  at  seventeen,  and  his  northern  nature  was 
late  to  flower.  There  seems,  in  fact,  to  have  been  even 
less  of  visible  promise  about  him  than  we  should  have  ex- 
pected ;  but  rather  something  untamed  and  insubordinate, 
something  heady  and  self-confident ;  an  independence  that 
seemed  only  rusticity,  and  an  indolent  ignorance  which  as- 
sumed too  readily  the  tones  of  scorn.  He  was  as  yet  a 
creature  of  the  lakes  and  mountains,  and  love  for  Nature 
was  only  slowly  leading  him  to  love  and  reverence  for  man. 
Nay,  such  attraction  as  he  had  hitherto  felt  for  the  human 
race  had  been  interwoven  with  her  influence  in  a  way  so 
strange  that  to  many  minds  it  will  seem  a  childish  fancy 
not  worth  recounting.  The  objects  of  his  boyish  ideali- 
zation had  been  Cumbrian  shepherds — a  race  whose  per- 
sonality seems  to  melt  into  Nature's — who  are  united  as 
intimately  with  moor  and  mountain  as  the  petrel  with  the 

sea. 

"  A  rambling  school-boy,  thus 

I  felt  his  presence  in  his  own  domain 

As  of  a  lord  and  master — or  a  power, 

Or  genius,  under  Nature,  under  God, 

Presiding ;  and  severest  solitude 

Had  more  commanding  looks  when  he  was  there. 

When  up  the  lonely  brooks  on  rainy  days 

Angling  I  went,  or  trod  the  trackless  hills 

By  mists  bewildered,  suddenly  mine  eyes 

Have  glanced  upon  him  distant  a  few  steps, 

In  size  a  giant,  stalking  through  thick  fog; 


I.]  CAMBRIDGE.  11 

His  sheep  like  Greenland  bears ;  or,  as  he  stepped 

Beyond  the  boundary  line  of  some  hill-shadow, 

His  form  hath  flashed  upon  me,  glorified 

By  the  deep  radiance  of  the  setting  sun ; 

Or  him  have  I  descried  in  distant  sky, 

A  solitary  object  and  sublime, 

Above  all  height !  like  an  aerial  cross 

Stationed  alone  upon  a  spiry  rock 

Of  the  Chartreuse,  for  worship.     Thus  was  man 

Ennobled  outwardly  before  my  sight ; 

And  thus  my  heart  was  early  introduced 

To  an  unconscious  love  and  reverence 

Of  human  nature  ;  hence  the  human  form 

To  me  became  an  index  of  delight, 

Of  grace  and  honour,  power  and  worthiness." 

"  This  sanctity  of  Nature  given  to  man  " — this  interfu- 
sion of  human  interest  with  the  sublimity  of  moor  and 
hill  —  formed  a  typical  introduction  to  the  manner  in 
which  Wordsworth  regarded  mankind  to  the  end  —  de- 
picting him  as  set,  as  it  were,  amid  impersonal  influences, 
which  make  his  passion  and  struggle  but  a  little  thing ;  as 
when  painters  give  but  a  strip  of  their  canvas  to  the  fields 
and  cities  of  men,  and  overhang  the  narrowed  landscape 
with  the  space  and  serenity  of  heaven. 

To  this  distant  perception  of  man — of  man  "purified, 
removed,  and  to  a  distance  that  was  fit " — was  added,  in 
his  first  summer  vacation,  a  somewhat  closer  interest  in  the 
small  joys  and  sorrows  of  the  villagers  of  Hawkshead — a 
new  sympathy  for  the  old  Dame  in  whose  house  the  poet 
still  lodged,  for  "  the  quiet  woodman  in  the  woods,"  and 
even  for  the  "  frank-hearted  maids  of  rocky  Cumberland," 
with  whom  he  now  delighted  to  spend  an  occasional  even- 
ing in  dancing  and  country  mirth.     And  since  the  events 

in  this  poet's  life  are  for  the  most  part  inward  and  unseen, 
B  15 


12  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

and  depend  upon  some  shock  and  coincidence  between  tlie 
operations  of  his  spirit  and  the  cosmorama  of  the  external 
world,  he  has  recorded  with  especial  emphasis  a  certain 
sunrise  which  met  him  as  he  walked  homewards  from  one 
of  these  scenes  of  rustic  gaiety — a  sunrise  which  may  be 
said  to  have  begun  that  poetic  career  which  a  sunset  was 
to  close : 

"  Ah !  need  I  say,  dear  Friend,  that  to  the  brim 
My  heart  was  full ;  I  made  no  vows,  but  vows 
Were  then  made  for  me  ;  bond  unknown  to  me 
Was  given,  that  I  should  be,  else  sinning  greatly, 
A  dedicated  Spirit." 

His  second  long  vacation  brought  him  a  further  gain  in 
human  affections.  His  sister,  of  whom  he  had  seen  little 
for  some  years,  was  with  him  once  more  at  Penrith,  and 
with  her  another  maiden, 

"  By  her  exulting  outside  look  of  youth 
And  placid  under-countenance,  first  endeared ;" 

whose  presence  now  laid  the  foundation  of  a  love  which 
was  to  be  renewed  and  perfected  when  his  need  for  it  was 
full,  and  was  to  be  his  support  and  solace  to  his  life's  end. 
His  third  long  vacation  he  spent  in  a  walking  tour  in 
Switzerland.  Of  this,  now  the  commonest  relaxation  of 
studious  youth,  he  speaks  as  of  an  "  unprecedented  course," 
indicating  "  a  hardy  slight  of  college  studies  and  their  set 
rewards."  And  it  seems,  indeed,  probable  that  Words- 
worth and  his  friend  Jones  were  actually  the  first  under- 
graduates who  ever  spent  their  summer  in  this  way.  The 
pages  of  the  Prelude  which  narrate  this  excursion,  and 
especially  the  description  of  the  crossing  of  the  Sim- 
plon — 


L]  CAMBRIDGE.  .  18 

"  The  immeastirable  height 
Of  woods  decaying,  never  to  be  decayed  " — 

form  one  of  the  most  impressive  parts  of  that  singular  au- 
tobiographical poem,  which,  at  first  sight  so  tedious  and 
insipid,  seems  to  gather  force  and  meaning  with  each  fresh 
perusal.  These  pages,  which  carry  up  to  the  verge  of 
manhood  the  story  of  Wordsworth's  career,  contain,  per- 
haps, as  strong  and  simple  a  picture  as  we  shall  anywhere 
find  of  hardy  English  youth — its  proud  self-sufficingness 
and  careless  independence  of  all  human  things.  Excite- 
ment, and  thought,  and  joy,  seem  to  come  at  once  at  its 
bidding;  and  the  chequered  and  struggling  existence  of 
adult  men  seems  something  which  it  need  never  enter,  and 
hardly  deigns  to  comprehend. 

Wordsworth  and  his  friend  encountered  on  this  tour 
Inany  a  stirring  symbol  of  the  expectancy  that  was  run- 
ning through  the  nations  of  Europe.  They  landed  at 
Calais  "  on  the  very  eve  of  that  great  federal  day  "  when 
the  Trees  of  Liberty  were  planted  all  over  France.  They 
met  on  their  return 

"  The  Brabant  armies  on  the  fret 
For  battle  in  the  cause  of  liberty." 

But  the  exulting  pulse  that  ran  through  the  poet's  veins 
could  hardly  yet  pause  to  sympathize  deeply  even  with 
what  in  the  world's  life  appealed  most  directly  to  ardent 
youth. 

"  A  stripling,  scarcely  of  the  household  then 
Of  social  life,  I  looked  upon  these  things 
As  from  a  distance  ;  heard,  and  saw,  and  felt- 
Was  touched,  but  with  no  intimate  concern. 
I  seemed  to  move  along  them  as  a  bird 
Moves  through  the  air,  or  as  a  fish  pursues 
Its  sport  or  feeds  in  its  proper  element. 


14 


WORDSWORTH.  [chap.  i. 

'wanted  not  that  joy,  I  did  not  need 
Such  help.     The  ever-living  universe, 
Turn  where  I  might,  was  opening  out  its  glories ; 
And  the  independent  spirit  of  pure  youth 
Called  forth  at  every  season  new  delights, 
Spread  round  my  steps  like  sunshine  o'er  green  fields." 


CHAPTER  II. 

RESIDENCE    IN   LONDON    AND    IN    FRANCE. 

Wordsworth  took  his  B.A.  degree  in  January,  1791,  and 
quitted  Cambridge  with  no  fixed  intentions  as  to  his  fut- 
ure career.  "  He  did  not  feel  himself,"  he  said  long  af- 
terwards, "  good  enough  for  the  Church ;  he  felt  that  his 
mind  was  not  properly  disciplined  for  that  holy  office,  and 
that  the  struggle  between  his  conscience  and  his  impulses 
would  have  made  life  a  torture.  He  also  shrank  from  the 
law.  He  had  studied  military  history  with  great  interest, 
and  the  strategy  of  war;  and  he  always  fancied  that  he 
had  talents  for  command ;  and  he  at  one  time  thought  of 
a  military  life ;  but  then  he  was  without  connexions,  and 
he  felt  if  he  were  ordered  to  the  West  Indies  his  talents 
would  not  save  him  from  the  yellow  fever,  and  he  gave 
that  up."  He  therefore  repaired  to  London,  and  lived 
there  for  a  time  on  a  small  allowance,  and  with  no  definite 
aim.  His  relations  with  the  great  city  were  of  a  very 
slight  and  external  kind.  He  had  few  acquaintances,  and 
spent  his  time  mainly  in  rambling  about  the  streets.  His 
descriptions  of  this  phase  of  his  life  have  little  interest. 
There  is  some  flatness  in  an  enumeration  of  the  nationali* 
ties  observable  in  a  London  crowd,  concluding  thus — 

"  Malays,  Lascars,  the  Tartar,  the  Chinese, 
And  Negro  Ladies  in  white  muslin  gowns," 


16  WORDSWORTH.  [char 

But  WordswortVs  limitations  were  inseparably  con- 
nected with  his  strength.  And  just  as  the  flat  scenery  of 
Cambridgeshire  had  only  served  to  intensify  his  love  for 
such  elements  of  beauty  and  grandeur  as  still  were  pres- 
ent in  sky  and  fen,  even  so  the  bewilderment  of  London 
taught  him  to  recognize  with  an  intenser  joy  such  frag- 
ments of  things  rustic,  such  aspects  of  things  eternal,  as 
were  to  be  found  amidst  that  rush  and  roar.  To  the  frail- 
er spirit  of  Hartley  Coleridge  the  weight  of  London  might 
seem  a  load  impossible  to  shake  off.  "And  what  hath 
Nature,"  he  plaintively  asked — 

"  And  what  hath  Nature  but  the  blank  void  sky 
And  the  thronged  river  toiling  to  the  main  ?'* 

But  Wordsworth  saw  more  than  this.  He  became,  as  one 
may  say,  the  poet  not  of  London  considered  as  London, 
but  of  London  considered  as  a  part  of  the  country.  Like 
his  own  Farmer  of  Tilshury  Vale — 

"  In  the  throng  of  the  Town  like  a  Stranger  is  he, 
Like  one  whose  own  Country's  far  over  the  sea ; 
And  Nature,  while  through  the  great  city  he  hies, 
Full  ten  times  a  day  takes  his  heart  by  surprise." 

Among  the  poems  describing  these  sudden  shocks  ot 
vision  and  memory  none  is  more  exquisite  than  the  Rev- 
trie  of  Poor  Susan : 

"  At  the  corner  of  Wood  Street,  when  daylight  appears, 
Hangs  a  Thrush  that  sings  loud,  it  has  sung  for  three  years : 
Poor  Susan  has  passed  by  the  spot,  and  has  heard 
In  the  silence  of  morning  the  song  of  the  Bii'd. 

"  'Tis  a  note  of  enchantment ;  what  ails  her  ?    She  sees 
A  mountain  ascending,  a  vision  of  trees ; 
Bright  volumes  of  vapour  through  Lothbury  glide. 
And  a  river  flows  on  through  the  vale  of  Cheapside." 


11.]  RESIDENCE  IN  LONDON  AND  IN  FRANCE.  17 

The  picture  is  one  of  those  which  come  home  to  many  a 
country  heart  with  one  of  those  sudden  "  revulsions  into 
the  natural"  which  philosophers  assert  to  be  the  essence 
of  human  joy.  But  noblest  and  best  known  of  all  these 
poems  is  the  Sonnet  on  Westminster  Bridge^  "  Earth  hath 
not  anything  to  show  more  fair ;"  in  which  Nature  has  re- 
asserted her  dominion  over  the  works  of  all  the  multitude 
of  men ;  and  in  the  early  clearness  the  poet  beholds  the 
great  City  —  as  Sterling  imagined  it  on  his  dying  bed — 
"  not  as  full  of  noise  and  dust  and  confusion,  but  as  some- 
thing silent,  grand,  and  everlasting."  And  even  in  later 
life,  when  Wordsworth  was  often  in  London,  and  was  wel- 
come in  any  society,  he  never  lost  this  external  manner 
of  regarding  it.  He  was  always  of  the  same  mind  as  the 
group  of  listeners  in  his  Power  of  Music : 

"Now, Coaches  and  Chariots !  roar  on  like  a  stream! 
Here  are  twenty  Souls  happy  as  souls  in  a  dream : 
They  are  deaf  to  your  murmurs,  they  care  not  for  you, 
Nor  what  ye  are  flying,  nor  what  ye  pursue  !" 

He  never  made  the  attempt — vulgarized  by  so  many  a 
"  fashionable  novelist,"  and  in  which  no  poet  has  succeeded 
yet — to  disentangle  from  that  turmoil  its  elements  of  ro- 
mance and  of  greatness ;  to  enter  that  realm  of  emotion 
where  Nature's  aspects  become  the  scarcely  noted  acces- 
sory of  vicissitudes  that  transcend  her  own ;  to  trace  the 
passion  or  the  anguish  which  whirl  along  some  lurid  vista 
towards  a  sun  that  sets  in  storm,  or  gaze  across  silent 
squares  by  summer  moonlight  amid  a  smell  of  dust  and 
flowers. 

But  although  Wordsworth  passed  thus  through  London 
unmodified  and  indifferent,  the  current  of  things  was  sweep- 
ing him  on  to  mingle  in  a  fiercer  tumult — to  be  caught  in 


18  WORDSWORTH.  [chai: 

the  tides  of  a  more  violent  and  feverish  life.  In  Novem- 
ber, 1791,  he  landed  in  France,  meaning  to  pass  the  winter 
at  Orleans  and  learn  French.  Up  to  this  date  the  French 
Revolution  had  impressed  him  in  a  rather  unusual  manner 
— namely,  as  being  a  matter  of  course.  The  explanation 
of  this  view  is  a  somewhat  singular  one.  Wordsworth's 
was  an  old  family,  and  his  connexions  were  some  of  them 
wealthy  and  well  placed  in  the  world ;  but  the  chances  of 
his  education  had  been  such  that  he  could  scarcely  realize 
to  himself  any  other  than  a  democratic  type  of  society. 
Scarcely  once,  he  tells  us,  in  his  school  days  had  he  seen 
boy  or  man  who  claimed  respect  on  the  score  ofn«^ealth 
and  blood ;  and  the  manly  atmosphere  of  Cambridge  pre- 
served even  in  her  lowest  days  a  society 

"  Where  all  stood  thus  far 
Upon  equal  ground ;  that  we  were  brothers  all 
In  honour,  as  m  one  community, 
Scholars  and  gentlemen ;" 

while  the  teachings  of  nature  and  the  dignity  of  Cumbrian 
peasant  life  had  confirmed  his  high  opinion  of  the  essen- 
tial worth  of  man.  The  upheaval  of  the  French  people, 
therefore,  and  the  downfall  of  privilege,  seemed  to  him  no 
portent  for  good  or  evil,  but  rather  the  tardy  return  of  a 
society  to  its  stable  equilibrium.  He  passed  through  rev- 
olutionized Paris  with  satisfaction  and  sympathy,  but  with 
little  active  emotion,  and  proceeded  first  to  Orleans,  and 
then  to  Blois,  between  which  places  he  spent  nearly  a  year. 
At  Orleans  he  became  intimately  acquainted  with  the  nobly- 
born  but  republican  General  Beaupuis,  an  inspiring  exam- 
ple of  all  in  the  Revolution  that  was  self-devoted  and  chiv- 
alrous, and  had  compassion  on  the  wretched  poor.  In  con- 
versation with  him  Wordsworth  learnt  with  what  new  force 


n.]  RESIDENCE  IN  LONDON  AND  IN  FRANCE.  19 

the  well-worn  adages  of  the  moralist  fall  from  the  lips  of 
one  who  is  called  upon  to  put  them  at  once  in  action,  and 
to  stake  life  itself  on  the  verity  of  his  maxims  of  honour. 
The  poet's  heart  burned  within  him  as  he  listened.  He 
could  not,  indeed,  help  mourning  sometimes  at  the  sight  of 
a  dismantled  chapel,  or  peopling  in  imagination  the  forest- 
glades  in  which  they  sat  with  the  chivalry  of  a  by-gone 
day.  But  he  became  increasingly  absorbed  in  his  friend's 
ardour,  and  the  Revolution  —  mulier  formosa  superne  — 
seemed  to  him  big  with  all  the  hopes  of  man. 

He  returned  to  Paris  in  October,  1792 — a  month  after 
the  massacres  of  September ;  and  he  has  described  his  agi- 
tation and  dismay  at  the  sight  of  such  world-wide  desti- 
nies swayed  by  the  hands  of  such  men.  In  a  passage  which 
curiously  illustrates  that  reasoned  self-confidence  and  de- 
liberate boldness  which  for  the  most  part  he  showed  only 
in  the  peaceful  incidents  of  a  literary  career,  he  has  told 
us  how  he  was  on  the  point  of  putting  himself  forward  as 
a  leader  of  the  Girondist  party,  in  the  conviction  that  his 
single-heartedness  of  aim  would  make  him,  in  spite  of  foreign 
birth  and  imperfect  speech,  a  point  round  which  the  con^ 
fused  instincts  of  the  multitude  might  not  impossibly  rally. 

Such  a  course  of  action — which,  whatever  its  other  re- 
sults, would  undoubtedly  have  conducted  him  to  the  guil- 
lotine with  his  political  friends  in  May,  1793  —  was  ren- 
dered impossible  by  a  somewhat  undignified  hindrance. 
Wordsworth,  while  in  his  own  eyes  "a  patriot  of  the 
world,"  was  in  the  eyes  of  others  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
two,  travelling  on  a  small  allowance,  and  running  his  head 
into  unnecessary  dangers.  His  funds  were  stopped,  and 
he  reluctantly  returned  to  England  at  the  close  of  1792. 

And  now  to  Wordsworth,  as  to  many  other  English 
patriots,  there  came,  on  a  great  scale,  that  form  of  sorrow 
2 


20  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

which  in  private  life  is  one  of  the  most  agonizing  of  all 
— when  two  beloved  beings,  each  of  them  erring  greatly, 
become  involved  in  bitter  hate.  The  new-born  Repub- 
lic flung  down  to  Europe  as  her  battle  -  gage  the  head  of 
a  king.  England,  in  an  hour  of  horror  that  was  almost 
panic,  accepted  the  defiance,  and  war  was  declared  be- 
tween the  two  countries  early  in  1793.  ''No  shock," 
says  Wordsworth, 

"  Given  to  my  moral  nature  had  I  known 
Down  to  that  very  moment ;  neither  lapse 
Nor  turn  of  sentiment  that  might  be  named 
A  revolution,  save  at  this  one  time ;" 

and  the  sound  of  the  evening  gun-fire  at  Portsmouth 
seemed  at  once  the  embodiment  and  the  premonition  of 
England's  guilt  and  woe. 

Yet  his  distracted  spirit  could  find  no  comfort  in  the 
thought  of  France.  For  in  France  the  worst  came  to  the 
Worst;  and  everything  vanished  of  liberty  except  the 
crimes  committed  in  her  name. 

"  Most  melancholy  at  that  time,  0  Friend ! 
Were  my  day-thoughts,  my  nights  were  miserable. 
Through  months,  through  years,  long  after  the  last  beat 
Of  those  atrocities,  the  hour  of  sleep 
To  me  came  rarely  charged  with  natural  gifts — 
Such  ghastly  visions  had  I  of  despair, 
And  tyranny,  and  implements  of  death ;  .  .  . 
And  levity  in  dungeons,  where  the  dust 
Was  laid  with  tears.     Then  suddenly  the  scene 
Changed,  and  the  untiroken  dream  entangled  me 
In  long  orations,  which  I  strove  to  plead 
Before  unjust  tribunals — with  a  voice 
Labouring,  a  brain  confounded,  and  a  sense, 
Death-like,  of  treacherous  desertion,  felt 
In  the  last  place  of  refuge — my  own  aoul." 


ri.]  RESIDENCE  IN  LONDON  AND  IN  FRANCE.  21 

These  years  of  perplexity  and  disappointment,  follow- 
ing on  a  season  of  overstrained  and  violent  hopes,  were 
the  sharpest  trial  through  which  Wordsworth  ever  passed. 
The  course  of  affairs  in  France,  indeed,  was  such  as  seem- 
ed by  an  irony  of  fate  to  drive  the  noblest  and  firmest 
hearts  into  the  worst  aberrations.  For  first  of  all  in  that 
Revolution,  Reason  had  appeared,  as  it  were,  in  visible 
shape,  and  hand  in  hand  with  Pity  and  Virtue ;  then,  as 
the  welfare  of  the  oppressed  peasantry  began  to  be  lost 
sight  of  amid  the  brawls  of  the  factions  of  Paris,  all  that 
was  attractive  and  enthusiastic  in  the  great  movement 
seemed  to  disappear,  but  yet  Reason  might  still  be  thought 
to  find  a  closer  realization  here  than  among  scenes  more 
serene  and  fair ;  and,  lastly,  Reason  set  in  blood  and  tyran- 
ny, and  there  was  no  more  hope  from  France.  But  those 
who,  like  Wordsworth,  had  been  taught  by  that  great  con- 
vulsion to  disdain  the  fetters  of  sentiment  and  tradition, 
and  to  look  on  Reason  as  supreme,  were  not  willing  to  re- 
linquish their  belief  because  violence  had  conquered  her  in 
one  more  battle.  Rather  they  clung  with  the  greater  te- 
nacity— "  adhered,"  in  Wordsworth's  words, 

"  More  firmly  to  old  tenets,  and  to  prove 
Their  temper,  strained  them  more  ;" 

cast  off  more  decisively  than  ever  the  influences  of  tradi- 
tion, and  in  their  Utopian  visions  even  wished  to  see  the 
perfected  race  severed  in  its  perfection  from  the  memories 
of  humanity,  and  from  kinship  with  the  struggling  past. 

Through  a  mood  of  this  kind  Wordsworth  had  to  travel 
now.  And  his  nature,  formed  for  pervading  attachments 
and  steady  memories,  suffered  grievously  from  the  priva- 
tion of  much  which  even  the  coldest  and  calmest  temper 
cannot  forego  without  detriment  and  pain.     For  it  is  not 


22  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

with  impunity  that  men  commit  themselves  to  the  sole 
guidance  of  either  of  the  two  great  elements  of  their  be- 
ing. The  penalties  of  trusting  to  the  emotions  alone  are 
notorious ;  and  every  day  affords  some  instance  of  a  char- 
acter that  has  degenerated  into  a  bundle  of  impulses,  of  a 
will  that  has  become  caprice.  But  the  consequences  of 
making  Reason  our  tyrant  instead  of  our  king  are  almost 
equally  disastrous.  There  is  so  little  which  Reason,  divest- 
ed of  all  emotional  or  instinctive  supports,  is  able  to  prove 
to  our  satisfaction  that  a  sceptical  aridity  is  likely  to  take 
possession  of  the  soul.  It  was  thus  with  Wordsworth; 
he  was  driven  to  a  perpetual  questioning  of  all  beliefs  and 
analysis  of  all  motives — 

"  Till,  demanding  formal  proof, 
And  seeking  it  in  everything,  I  lost 
All  feeling  of  conviction ;  and,  in  fine, 
Sick,  wearied  out  with  contrarieties. 
Yielded  up  moral  questions  in  despair." 

In  this  mood  all  those  great  generalized  conceptions 
which  are  the  food  of  our  love,  our  reverence,  our  religion, 
dissolve  away ;  and  Wordsworth  tells  us  that  at  this  time 

"  Even  the  visible  universe 
Fell  under  the  dominion  of  a  taste 
Less  spiritual,  with  microscopic  view 
Was  scanned,  as  I  had  scanned  the  moral  world." 

He  looked  on  the  operations  of  nature  "  in  disconnection 
dull  and  spiritless ;"  he  could  no  longer  apprehend  her 
unity  nor  feel  her  charm.  He  retained,  indeed,  his  craving 
for  natural  beauty,  but  in  an  uneasy  and  fastidious  mood — 

"  Giving  way 
To  a  comparison  of  scene  with  scene, 
Bent  overmuch  on  superficial  things, 


II.]  RESIDENCE  IN  LONDON  AND  IN  niANCE.  48 

Pampering  myself  with  meagre  noYelties 
Of  colour  and  proportion ;  to  the  moods 
Of  time  and  season,  to  the  moral  power, 
The  affections,  and  the  spirit  of  the  place, 
Insensible." 

Such  cold  fits  are  common  to  all  religions ;  they  haunt 
the  artist,  the  philanthropist,  the  philosopher,  the  saint. 
Often  they  are  due  to  some  strain  of  egoism  or  ambition 
which  has  intermixed  itself  with  the  impersonal  desire; 
sometimes,  as  in  Wordsworth's  case,  to  the  persistent  ten- 
sion of  a  mind  which  has  been  bent  too  ardently  towards 
an  ideal  scarce  possible  to  man.  And  in  this  case,  when 
the  objects  of  a  man's  habitual  admiration  are  true  and 
noble,  they  will  ever  be  found  to  suggest  some  antidote 
to  the  fatigues  of  their  pursuit.  We  shall  see  as  we  pro- 
ceed how  a  deepening  insight  into  the  lives  of  the  peas- 
antry around  him  —  the  happiness  and  virtue  of  simple 
Cumbrian  homes — restored  to  the  poet  a  serener  confi- 
dence in  human  nature,  amid  all  the  shame  and  downfall 
of  such  hopes  in  France.  And  that  still  profounder  loss 
of  delight  in  Nature  herself — that  viewing  of  all  things 
"  in  disconnection  dull  and  spiritless,"  which,  as  it  has  been 
well  said,  is  the  truest  definition  of  Atheism,  inasmuch  as  a 
unity  in  the  universe  is  the  first  element  in  our  conception 
of  God — this  dark  pathway  also  was  not  without  its  outlet 
into  the  day.  For  the  God  in  Nature  is  not  only  a  God 
of  Beauty,  but  a  God  of  Law ;  his  unity  can  be  apprehend- 
ed in  power  as  well  as  in  glory ;  and  Wordsworth's  mind, 
"sinking  inward  upon  itself  from  thought  to  thought," 
found  rest  for  the  time  in  that  austere  religion — Hebrew 
at  once  and  scientific,  common  to  a  Newton  and  a  Job — 
which  is  fostered  by  the  prolonged  contemplation  of  the 
mere  Order  of  the  sum  of  thinsfs. 


M  WORDSWORTH.  [chap.il 

"Not  in  Tain 
I  had  been  taught  to  reverence  a  Power 

That  is  the  visible  quaHty  and  shape 
And  image  of  right  reason." 

Not,  indeed,  in  vain !  For  he  felt  now  that  there  is  no 
side  of  truth,  however  remote  from  human  interests,  no 
aspect  of  the  universe,  however  awful  and  impersonal, 
which  may  not  have  power  at  some  season  to  guide  and 
support  the  spirit  of  man.  When  Goodness  is  obscured, 
when  Beauty  wearies,  there  are  some  souls  which  still  can 
cling  and  grapple  to  the  conception  of  eternal  Law. 

Of  such  stern  consolations  the  poet  speaks  as  having 
restored  him  in  his  hour  of  need.  But  he  gratefully 
acknowledges  also  another  solace  of  a  gentler  kind.  It 
was  about  this  time  (1795)  that  Wordsworth  was  blessed 
with  the  permanent  companionship  of  his  sister,  to  whom 
he  was  tenderly  attached,  but  whom,  since  childhood,  he 
had  seen  only  at  long  intervals.  Miss  Wordsworth,  after 
her  father's  death,  had  lived  mainly  with  her  maternal 
grandfather,  Mr.  Cookson,  at  Penrith ;  occasionally  at  Hali- 
fax with  other  relations ;  or  at  Forncett  with  her  uncle,  Dr. 
Cookson,  Canon  of  Windsor.  She  was  now  able  to  join 
her  favourite  brother ;  and  in  this  gifted  woman  Words- 
worth found  a  gentler  and  sunnier  likeness  of  himself ;  he 
found  a  love  which  never  wearied,  and  a  sympathy  fervid 
without  blindness,  whose  suggestions  lay  so  directly  in  his 
mind's  natural  course  that  they  seemed  to  spring  from  the 
same  individuality,  and  to  form  at  once  a  portion  of  his 
inmost  being.  The  opening  of  this  new  era  of  domestic 
happiness  demands  a  separate  chapter. 


CHAPTER  III. 

MISS    WORDSWORTH. LYRICAL    BALLADS. — SETTLEMENT    AT 

GRASMEKE. 

From  among  many  letters  of  Miss  Wordsworth's  to  a 
beloved  friend  (Miss  Jane  Pollard,  afterwards  Mrs.  Mar- 
shall, of  Hallsteads),  which  have  been  kindly  placed  at  ray 
disposal,  I  may  without  impropriety  quote  a  few  passages 
which  illustrate  the  character  and  the  affection  of  brother 
and  sister  alike.  And  first,  in  a  letter  (Fomcett,  February, 
1792),  comparing  her  brothers  Christopher  and  William, 
she  says:  "Christopher  is  steady  and  sincere  in  his  at- 
tachments. William  has  both  these  virtues  in  an  eminent 
degree,  and  a  sort  of  violence  of  affection,  if  I  may  so 
term  it,  which  demonstrates  itself  every  moment  of  the 
day,  when  the  objects  of  his  affection  are  present  with 
him,  in  a  thousand  almost  imperceptible  attentions  to 
their  wishes,  in  a  sort  of  restless  watchfulness  which  I 
know  not  how  to  describe,  a  tenderness  that  never  sleeps, 
and  at  the  same  time  such  a  delicacy  of  manner  as  I  have 
observed  in  few  men."  And  again  (Forncett,  June,  1793), 
she  writes  to  the  same  friend :  "  I  have  strolled  into  a 
neighbouring  meadow,  where  I  am  enjoying  the  melody 
of  birds,  and  the  busy  sounds  of  a  fine  summer's  evening. 
But  oh  !  how  imperfect  is  my  pleasure  whilst  I  am  alone ! 
Why  are  you  not  seated  with  me  ?  and  my  dear  William, 


26  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

why  is  he  not  here  also  ?  I  could  almost  fancy  that  I  see 
you  both  near  me.  I  hear  you  point  out  a  spot,  where, 
if  we  could  erect  a  little  cottage  and  call  it  our  own,  we 
should  be  the  happiest  of  human  beings.  I  see  my  brother 
fired  with  the  idea  of  leading  his  sister  to  such  a  retreat. 
Our  parlour  is  in  a  moment  furnished,  our  garden  is 
adorned  by  magic ;  the  roses  and  honeysuckles  spring  at 
our  command ;  the  wood  behind  the  house  lifts  its  head, 
and  furnishes  us  with  a  winter's  shelter  and  a  summer's 
noonday  shade.  My  dear  friend,  I  trust  that  erelong  you 
will  be,  without  the  aid  of  imagination,  the  companion 
of  my  walks,  and  my  dear  William  may  be  of  our  par- 
ty. ..  .  He  is  now  going  upon  a  tour  in  the  west  of  Eng- 
land,  with  a  gentleman  who  was  formerly  a  school  -  fel- 
low— a  man  of  fortune,  who  is  to  bear  all  the  expenses  of 
the  journey,  and  only  requests  the  favour  of  William's 
company.  He  is  perfectly  at  liberty  to  quit  this  compan- 
ion as  soon  as  anything  more  advantageous  offers.  But  it 
is  enough  to  say  that  I  am  likely  to  have  the  happiness  of 
introducing  you  to  my  beloved  brother.  You  must  for- 
give me  for  talking  so  much  of  him ;  my  affection  hurries 
me  on,  and  makes  me  forget  that  you  cannot  be  so  much 
interested  in  the  subject  as  I  am.  You  do  not  know  him ; 
you  do  not  know  how  amiable  he  is.  Perhaps  you  reply, 
'  But  I  know  how  blinded  you  are.'  Well,  my  dearest, 
I  plead  guilty  at  once ;  I  must  be  blind ;  he  cannot  be  so 
pleasing  as  my  fondness  makes  him.  I  am  willing  to 
allow  that  half  the  virtues  with  which  I  fancy  him  en- 
dowed are  the  creation  of  my  love ;  but  surely  I  may  be 
excused!  He  was  never  tired  of  comforting  his  sister; 
he  never  left  her  in  anger ;  he  always  met  her  with  joy ; 
he  preferred  her  society  to  every  other  pleasure — or  rather, 
when  we  were  so  happy  as  to  be  within  each  other's  reach, 


iH.]  MISS  WORDSWORTH.  2*^ 

he  had  no  pleasure  when  we  were  compelled  to  be  divided. 
Do  not,  then,  expect  too  much  from  this  brother  of  whom 
I  have  delighted  so  to  talk  to  you.  In  the  first  place, 
you  must  be  with  him  more  than  once  before  he  will  be 
perfectly  easy  in  conversation.  In  the  second  place,  his 
person  is  not  in  his  favour — at  least  I  should  think  not ; 
but  I  soon  ceased  to  discover  this — nay,  I  almost  thought 
that  the  opinion  which  I  had  formed  was  erroneous.  He 
is,  however,  certainly  rather  plain,  though  otherwise  has 
an  extremely  thoughtful  countenance ;  but  when  he  speaks 
it  is  often  lighted  up  by  a  smile  which  I  think  very  pleas- 
ing. But  enough,  he  is  my  brother;  why  should  I  de- 
scribe him  ?     I  shall  be  launching  again  into  panegyric." 

The  brother's  language  to  his  sister  is  equally  affection- 
ate.  "How  much  do  I  wish,"  he  writes  in  1793,  "that 
each  emotion  of  pleasure  or  pain  that  visits  your  heart 
should  excite  a  similar  pleasure  or  a  similar  pain  within 
me,  by  that  sympathy  which  will  almost  identify  us  when 
we  have  stolen  to  our  little  cottage.  ...  I  will  write  to  my 
uncle,  and  tell  him  that  I  cannot  think  of  going  anywhere 
before  I  have  been  with  you.  Whatever  answer  he  gives 
me,  I  certainly  will  make  a  point  of  once  more  mingling 
my  transports  with  yours.  Alas !  my  dear  sister,  how 
Boon  must  this  happiness  expire ;  yet  there  are  moments 
worth  ages." 

And  again,  in  the  same  year,  he  writes,  "  Oh,  my  dear, 
dear  sister !  with  what  transport  shall  I  again  meet  you ! 
with  what  rapture  shall  I  again  wear  out  the  day  in  your 
sight !  ...  I  see  you  in  a  moment  running,  or  rather  fly- 
ing, to  my  arms." 

Wordsworth  was  in  all  things  fortunate,  but  in  nothing 
more  fortunate  than  in  this,  that  so  unique  a  companion 
should  have  been  ready  to  devote  herself  to  him  with  an 
C      2*  1^ 


28  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

affection  wholly  free  from  egoism  or  jealousy — an  affec- 
tion that  yearned  only  to  satisfy  his  subtlest  needs,  and  to 
transfuse  all  that  was  best  in  herself  into  his  larger  being. 
And,  indeed,  that  fortunate  admixture  or  influence,  whence- 
soever  derived,  which  raised  the  race  of  Wordsworth  to 
poetic  fame,  was  almost  more  dominant  and  conspicuous 
in  Dorothy  Wordsworth  than  in  the  poet  himself.  "  The 
shooting  lights  of  her  wild  eyes  "  reflected  to  the  full  the 
strain  of  imaginative  emotion  which  was  mingled  in  the 
poet's  nature  with  that  spirit  of  steadfast  and  conserva- 
tive virtue  which  has  already  given  to  the  family  a  Mas- 
ter of  Trinity,  two  Bishops,  and  other  diviifes  and  schol- 
ars of  weight  and  consideration.  In  the  poet  himself  the 
conservative  and  ecclesiastical  tendencies  of  his  character 
became  more  and  more  apparent  as  advancing  years 
stiffened  the  movements  of  the  mind.  In  his  sister  the 
ardent  element  was  less  restrained ;  it  showed  itself  in  a 
most  innocent  direction,  but  it  brought  with  it  a  heavy 
punishment.  Her  passion  for  nature  and  her  affection  for 
her  brother  led  her  into  mountain  rambles  which  were  be- 
yond her  strength,  and  her  last  years  were  spent  in  a  con- 
dition of  physical  and  mental  decay. 

But  at  the  time  of  which  we  are  now  speating  there 
was,  perhaps,  no  one  in  the  world  who  could  have  been  to 
the  poet  such  a  companion  as  his  sister  became.  She  had 
not,  of  course,  his  grasp  of  mind  or  his  poetic  power ;  but 
her  sensitiveness  to  nature  was  quite  as  keen  as  his,  and 
her  disposition  resembled  his  "  with  sunshine  added  to 
daylight." 

"  Birds  in  the  bower,  and  lambs  in  the  green  field, 
Could  they  have  known  her,  would  have  loved ;  methought 
Her  very  presence  such  a  sweetness  breathed, 
That  flowers,  and  trees,  and  even  the  silent  hills, 


m.]  MISS  WORDSWORTH.  29 

And  everything  she  looked  on,  should  have  had 
An  intimation  how  she  bore  herself 
Towards  them,  and  to  all  creatures." 

Her  journal  of  a  tour  in  Scotland,  and  her  description 
of  a  week  on  Ullswater,  aflBxed  to  Wordsworth's  Guide  to 
the  Lakes — diaries  not  written  for  publication,  but  merely 
to  communicate  her  own  delight  to  intimate  friends  at  a 
distance — are  surely  indescribably  attractive  in  their  naive 
and  tender  feeling,  combined  with  a  delicacy  of  insight 
into  natural  beauty  which  was  almost  a  new  thing  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  If  we  compare,  for  instance,  any  of 
her  descriptions  of  the  Lakes  with  Southey's,  we  see  the 
difference  between  mere  literary  skill,  which  can  now  be 
rivalled  in  many  quarters,  and  that  sympathetic  intuition 
which  comes  of  love  alone.  Even  if  we  compare  her  with 
Gray,  whose  short  notice  of  Cumberland  bears  on  every 
page  the  stamp  of  a  true  poet,  we  are  struck  by  the  way 
in  which  Miss  Wordsworth's  tenderness  for  all  living 
things  gives  character  and  pathos  to  her  landscapes,  and 
evokes  from  the  wildest  solitude  some  note  that  thrills  the 
heart. 

"  She  gave  me  eyes,  she  gave  me  ears, 

And  humble  cares,  and  delicate  fears  ; 

A  heart  the  fountain  of  sweet  tears  ; 

And  love,  and  thought,  and  joy." 

The  cottage  life  in  her  brother's  company,  which  we 
have  seen  Miss  Wordsworth  picturing  to  herself  with  girl- 
ish ardour,  was  destined  to  be  realized  no  long  time  af- 
terwards, thanks  to  the  unlooked-for  outcome  of  another 
friendship.  If  the  poet's  sister  was  his  first  admirer,  Rais- 
ley  Calvert  may  fairly  claim  the  second  place.  Calvert 
was  the  son  of  the  steward  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  who 
possessed  large  estates  in  Cumberland.     He  attached  him- 


so  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

self  to  Wordsworth,  and  in  1793  and  1794  the  friends 
were  much  together.  Calvert  was  then  attacked  by  con- 
sumption, and  Wordsworth  nursed  him  with  patient  care. 
It  was  found  at  his  death  that  he  had  left  his  friend  a 
legacy  of  900^.  "  The  act,"  says  Wordsworth,  "  was  done 
entirely  from  a  confidence  on  his  part  that  I  had  powers 
and  attainments  which  might  be  of  use  to  mankind.  Upon 
the  interest  of  the  900/. — 400/.  being  laid  out  in  annuity 
— with  2001.  deducted  from  the  principal,  and  100/.  a  leg- 
acy to  my  sister,  and  100/.  more  which  the  Lyrical  Bal- 
lads have  brought  me,  my  sister  and  I  contrived  to  live 
seven  years,  nearly  eight." 

Trusting  in  this  small  capital,  and  with  nothing  to  look 
to  in  the  future  except  the  uncertain  prospect  of  the  pay- 
ment of  Lord  Lonsdale's  debt  to  the  family, Wordsworth 
settled  with  his  sister  at  Racedown,  near  Crewkerne,  in 
Dorsetshire,  in  the  autumn  of  1V95,  the  choice  of  this  lo- 
cality being  apparently  determined  by  the  offer  of  a  cot- 
tage on  easy  terms.  Here,  in  the  first  home  which  he 
had  possessed,  Wordsworth's  steady  devotion  to  poetry 
began.  He  had  already,  in  1792,^  published  two  little 
poems,  the  Evening  Walk  and  Descriptive  Sketches,  which 
Miss  Wordsworth  (to  whom  the  Evening  Walk  was  ad- 
dressed) criticises  with  candour  in  a  letter  to  the  same 
friend  (Forncett,  February,  1792) : 

"  The  scenes  which  he  describes  have  been  viewed  with 
a  poet's  eye,  and  are  portrayed  with  a  poet's  pencil ;  and 
the  poems  contain  many  passages  exquisitely  beautiful; 
but  they  also  contain  many  faults,  the  chief  of  which  are 
obscurity  and  a  too  frequent  use  of  some  particular  ex- 
pressions and  uncommon  words ;  for  instance,  moveless, 

*  The  Memoirs  say  in  1793,  but  the  following  MS.  letter  of  1792 
epcaks  of  them  as  already  published. 


III.]  LYRICAL  BALLADS.  31 

which  he  applies  in  a  sense,  if  not  new,  at  least  different 
from  its  ordinary  one.  By  'moveless,'  when  applied  to 
the  swan,  he  means  that  sort  of  motion  which  is  smooth 
without  agitation  ;  it  is  a  very  beautiful  epithet,  but  ought 
to  have  been  cautiously  used.  The  word  viewless  also  is 
introduced  far  too  often.  I  regret  exceedingly  that  he  did 
not  submit  the  works  to  the  inspection  of  some  friend  before 
their  publication,  and  he  also  joins  with  me  in  this  regret." 

These  poems  show  a  careful  and  minute  observation  of 
nature,  but  their  versification  —  still  reminding  us  of  the 
imitators  of  Pope — has  little  originality  or  charm.  They 
attracted  the  admiration  of  Coleridge,  but  had  no  further 
success. 

At  Racedown  Wordsworth  finished  Guilt  and  Sorrow, 
a  poem  gloomy  in  tone  and  written  mainly  in  his  period 
of  depression  and  unrest ;  and  wrote  a  tragedy  called  The 
Borderers,  of  which  only  a  few  lines  show  any  promise  of 
future  excellence.  He  then  wrote  The  Ruined  Cottage^ 
now  incorporated  in  the  First  Book  of  the  Excursion, 
This  poem,  on  a  subject  thoroughly  suited  to  his  powers, 
was  his  first  work  of  merit;  and  Coleridge,  who  visited 
the  quiet  household  in  June,  1797,  pronounces  this  poem 
"  superior,  I  hesitate  not  to  aver,  to  anything  in  our  lan- 
guage which  in  any  way  resembles  it."  In  July,  1797,  the 
Wordsworths  removed  to  Alfoxden,  a  large  house  in  Som- 
ersetshire, near  Netherstowey,  where  Coleridge  was  at  that 
time  living.  Here  Wordsworth  added  to  his  income  by 
taking  as  pupil  a  young  boy,  the  hero  of  the  trifling  poem 
Anecdote  for  Fathers,  a  son  of  Mr.  Basil  Montagu ;  and 
here  he  composed  many  of  his  smaller  pieces.  He  has 
described  the  origin  of  the  Ancient  Mariner  and  the  Lyri- 
cal Ballads  in  a  well-known  passage,  part  of  which  I  must 
here  repeat : 


32  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

"In  the  autumn  of  1797,  Mr.  Coleridge,  my  sister,  and  myself 
started  from  Alfoxden  pretty  late  in  the  afternoon,  with  a  view  to 
visit  Linton,  and  the  Yalley  of  Stones  near  to  it ;  and  as  our  united 
funds  were  very  small,  we  agreed  to  defray  the  expense  of  the  tour 
by  writing  a  poem,  to  be  sent  to  the  New  MoyitJily  Magazine.  In  the 
course  of  this  walk  was  planned  the  poem  of  the  Ancient  Mariner^ 
founded  on  a  dream,  as  Mr.  Coleridge  said,  of  his  friend  Mr.  Cruik- 
shank.  Much  the  greatest  part  of  the  story  was  Mr.  Coleridge's  in- 
vention ;  but  certain  parts  I  suggested :  for  example,  some  crime 
was  to  be  committed  which  was  to  bring  upon  the  Old  Navigator,  as 
Coleridge  afterwards  dehghted  to  call  him,  the  spectral  persecution, 
as  a  consequence  of  that  crime  and  his  own  wanderings.  I  had 
been  reading  in  Shelvocke's  Voyages,  a  day  or  two  before,  that  while 
doubling  Cape  Horn  they  frequently  saw  albatrosses  in  that  latitude, 
the  largest  sort  of  sea-fowl,  some  extending  their  wings  twelve  or 
thirteen  feet.  '  Suppose,'  said  I, '  you  represent  him  as  having  kill- 
ed one  of  these  birds  on  entering  the  South  Sea,  and  that  the  tutelary 
spirits  of  these  regions  take  upon  them  to  avenge  the  crime.  The 
incident  was  thought  fit  for  the  purpose,  and  adopted  according- 
ly. I  also  suggested  the  navigation  of  the  ship  by  the  dead  man, 
but  do  not  recollect  that  I  had  anything  more  to  do  with  the  scheme 
of  the  poem.  We  began  the  composition  together,  on  that  to  me 
memorable  evening.  I  furnished  two  or  three  lines  at  the  beginning 
of  the  poem,  in  particular — 

" '  And  listened  like  a  three  years'  child ; 
The  Mariner  had  his  will.' 

As  we  endeavoured  to  proceed  conjointly  our  respective  manners 
proved  so  widely  different,  that  it  would  have  been  quite  presumpt- 
uous in  me  to  do  anything  but  separate  from  an  undertaking  upon 
which  I  could  only  have  been  a  clog.  The  Andent  Mariner  grew  and 
grew,  till  it  became  too  important  for  our  first  object,  which  was  lim- 
ited to  our  expectation  of  five  pounds ;  and  we  began  to  think  of  a 
volume,  which  was  to  consist,  as  Mr.  Coleridge  has  told  the  world,  of 
poems  chiefly  on  supernatural  subjects,  taken  from  common  life,  but 
looked  at,  as  much  as  might  be,  through  an  imaginative  medium." 

The  volume  of  Lyrical  Ballads,  whose  first  beginnings 
have  here  been  traced,  was  published  in  the  autumn  of 


ni.]  LYRICAL  BALLADS.  33 

1798,  by  Mr.  Cottle,  at  BristoL  This  volume  contained 
several  poems  which  have  been  justly  blamed  for  triviality 
— as  The  Thorn,  Goody  Blake,  The  Idiot  Boy  ;  several  in 
which,  as  in  Simon  Lee,  triviality  is  mingled  with  much 
real  pathos ;  and  some,  as  Expostulation  and  Reply  and 
The  Tables  Turned,  which  are  of  the  very  essence  of 
Wordsworth's  nature.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that, 
if  these  two  last-named  poems — to  the  careless  eye  so  slight 
and  trifling  —  were  all  that  had  remained  from  Words- 
worth's hand,  they  would  have  "spoken  to  the  compre- 
hending" of  a  new  individuality,  as  distinct  and  unmis- 
takable in  its  way  as  that  which  Sappho  has  left  engraven 
on  the  world  forever  in  words  even  fewer  than  these. 
And  the  volume  ended  with  a  poem  which  Wordsworth 
composed  in  1798,  in  one  day,  during  a  tour  with  his  sis- 
ter to  Tintern  and  Chepstow.  The  Lines  written  above 
Tintern  Abbey  have  become,  as  it  were,  the  locus  classi- 
cus,  or  consecrated  formulary  of  the  Words worthian  faith. 
They  say  in  brief  what  it  is  the  work  of  the  poet's  biog- 
rapher to  say  in  detail. 

As  soon  as  this  volume  was  published  Wordsworth  and 
his  sister  sailed  for  Hamburg,  in  the  hope  that  their  im- 
perfect acquaintance  with  the  German  language  might  be 
improved  by  the  heroic  remedy  of  a  winter  at  Goslar.  But 
at  Goslar  they  do  not  seem  to  have  made  any  acquaintances, 
and  their  self  -  improvement  consisted  mainly  in  reading 
German  books  to  themselves.  The  four  months  spent  at 
Goslar,  however,  were  the  very  bloom  of  Wordsworth's 
poetic  career.  Through  none  of  his  poems  has  the  peculiar 
loveliness  of  English  scenery  and  English  girlhood  shone 
more  delicately  than  through  those  which  came  to  him  as 
he  paced  the  frozen  gardens  of  that  desolate  city.  Here 
it  was  that  he  wrote  Lucy  Gray,  and  Euth,  and  Nuttiny, 


84  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

and  the  Poefs  Epitaph,  and  other  poems  known  now  to 
most  men  as  possessing  in  its  full  fragrance  his  especial 
charm.  And  here  it  was  that  the  memory  of  some  emo- 
tion prompted  the  lines  on  Lucy.  Of  the  history  of  that 
emotion  he  has  told  us  nothing ;  I  forbear,  therefore,  to 
inquire  concerning  it,  or  even  to  speculate.  That  it  was  to 
the  poet's  honour,  I  do  not  doubt ;  but  who  ever  learned 
such  secrets  rightly  ?  or  who  should  wish  to  learn  ?  It  is 
best  to  leave  the  sanctuary  of  all  hearts  inviolate,  and  to 
respect  the  reserve  not  only  of  the  living  but  of  the  dead. 
Of  these  poems,  almost  alone,  Wordsworth  in  his  autobio- 
graphical notes  has  said  nothing  whatever.  One  of  them 
he  suppressed  for  years,  and  printed  only  in  a  later  volume. 
One  can,  indeed,  well  imagine  that  there  may  be  poems 
which  a  man  may  be  willing  to  give  to  the  world  only  in 
the  hope  that  their  pathos  will  be,  as  it  were,  protected  by 
its  own  intensity,  and  that  those  who  are  worthiest  to  com- 
prehend will  be  least  disposed  to  discuss  them. 

The  autobiographical  notes  on  his  own  works  above  al- 
luded to  were  dictated  by  the  poet  to  his  friend  Miss  Isa- 
bella Fenwick,  at  her  urgent  request,  in  1843,  and  preserve 
many  interesting  particulars  as  to  the  circumstances  under 
which  each  poem  was  composed.  They  are  to  be  found 
printed  entire  among  Wordsworth's  prose  works,  and  I 
shall  therefore  cite  them  only  occasionally.  Of  Lucy  Gray, 
for  instance,  he  says — 

"  It  was  founded  on  a  circumstance  told  me  by  my  sister,  of  a  lit- 
tle girl  who,  not  far  from  Halifax,  in  Yorkshire,  was  bewildered  in  a 
snow-storm.  Her  footsteps  were  tracked  by  her  parents  to  the  mid- 
dle of  the  lock  of  a  canal,  and  no  other  vestige  of  her,  backward  or 
forward,  could  be  traced.  The  body,  however,  was  found  in  the  canal. 
The  way  in  which  the  incident  was  treated,  and  the  spiritualizing  of 
the  character,  might  furnish  hints  for  contrasting  the  imaginative 


III.]  LYRICAL  BALLADS.  35 

influences  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  throw  over  common  life,  with 
Crabbe's  matter-of-fact  style  of  handling  subjects  of  the  same  kind." 

And  of  the  Lines  written  in  Germany^  1798-99 — 

"A  bitter  winter  it  was  when  these  verses  were  composed  by  the 
side  of  my  sister,  in  our  lodgings,  at  a  draper's  house,  in  the  romantic 
imperial  town  of  Goslar,  on  the  edge  of  the  Hartz  forest.  So  severe 
was  the  cold  of  this  winter  that,  when  we  passed  out  of  the  parlour 
warmed  by  the  stove,  our  cheeks  were  struck  by  the  air  as  by  cold 
iron.  I  slept  in  a  room  over  a  passage  that  was  not  ceiled.  The 
people  of  the  house  used  to  say,  rather  unfeelingly,  that  they  expect- 
ed I  should  be  frozen  to  death  some  night ;  but  with  the  protection 
of  a  pelisse  lined  with  fur,  and  a  dog's-skin  bonnet,  such  as  was  worn 
by  the  peasants,  I  walked  daily  on  the  ramparts  or  on  a  sort  of  pub- 
lic ground  or  garden,  in  which  was  a  pond.  Here  I  had  no  compan- 
ion but  a  kingfisher,  a  beautiful  creature  that  used  to  glance  by  me. 
I  consequently  became  much  attached  to  it.  During  these  walks  I 
composed  Tlie  PoeVs  Epitaph^ 

Seldom  has  there  been  a  more  impressive  instance  of  the 
contrast,  familiar  to  biographers,  between  the  apparent  in- 
significance and  the  real  importance  of  their  hero  in  undis- 
tinguished youth.  To  any  one  considering  Wordsworth 
as  he  then  was — a  rough  and  somewhat  stubborn  young 
man,  who,  in  nearly  thirty  years  of  life,  had  seemed  alter- 
nately to  idle  without  grace  and  to  study  without  ad- 
vantage—  it  might  well  have  seemed  incredible  that  he 
could  have  anything  new  or  valuable  to  communicate  to 
mankind.  Where  had  been  his  experience  ?  or  where  was 
the  indication  of  that  wealth  of  sensuous  emotion  which  in 
mch  a  nature  as  Keats's  seems  almost  to  dispense  with  ex- 
perience, and  to  give  novelty  by  giving  vividness  to  such 
passions  as  are  known  to  all  ?  If  Wordsworth  were  to  im- 
press mankind  it  must  be,  one  might  have  thought,  by 
travelling  out  of  himself  altogether — by  revealing  some 


86  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

sucb  energy  of  imagination  as  can  create  a  world  of  ro- 
mance and  adventure  in  the  shvest  heart.  But  this  was 
not  so  to  be.  Already  Wordsworth's  minor  poems  had 
dealt  almost  entirely  with  his  own  feelings,  and  with  the 
objects  actually  before  his  eyes ;  and  it  was  at  Goslar  that 
he  planned,  and  on  the  day  of  his  quitting  Goslar  that  he 
began,  a  much  longer  poem,  whose  subject  was  to  be  still 
more  intimately  personal,  being  the  development  of  his  own 
mind.  This  poem,  dedicated  to  Coleridge,  and  written  in 
the  form  of  a  confidence  bestowed  on  an  intimate  friend, 
was  finished  in  1805,  but  was  not  published  till  after  the 
poet's  death.  Mrs,  Wordsworth  then  named  it  The  Pre- 
lude^ indicating  thus  the  relation  which  it  bears  to  the  Ex- 
cursion— or,  rather,  to  the  projected  poem  of  the  Recluse^ 
of  which  the  Excursion  was  to  form  only  the  Second  out 
of  three  Divisions.  One  Book  of  the  First  Division  of  the 
Becluse  was  written,  but  is  yet  unpublished ;  the  Third 
Division  was  never  even  begun,  and  "the  materials,"  we 
are  told, "  of  which  it  would  have  been  formed  have  been 
incorporated,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  author's  other  pub- 
lications." Nor  need  this  change  of  plan  be  regretted : 
didactic  poems  admit  easily  of  mutilation ;  and  all  that  can 
be  called  plot  in  this  series  of  works  is  contained  in  the 
Prelude^  in  which  we  see  Wordsworth  arriving  at  those 
convictions  which  in  the  Excursion  he  pauses  to  expound. 
It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  Wordsworth  has  been 
wholly  successful  in  the  attempt — for  such  the  Prelude 
virtually  is — to  write  an  epic  poem  on  his  own  education. 
Such  a  poem  must  almost  necessarily  appear  tedious  and 
egoistic,  and  Wordsworth's  manner  has  not  tact  enough 
to  prevent  these  defects  from  being  felt  to  the  full.  On 
the  contrary,  in  his  constant  desire  frugally  to  extract,  as 
it  were,  its  full  teaching  from  the  minutest  event  which 


III.]  SETTLEMENT  AT  GRASMERE.  87 

has  befallen  him,  he  supplements  the  self-complacencj  of 
the  autobiographer  with  the  conscientious  exactness  of  the 
moralist,  and  is  apt  to  insist  on  trifles  such  as  lodge  in  the 
corners  of  every  man's  memory,  as  if  they  were  unique 
lessons  vouchsafed  to  himself  alone. 

Yet  it  follows  from  this  very  temper  of  mind  that  there 
is  scarcely  any  autobiography  which  we  can  read  with  such 
implicit  confidence  as  the  Prelude.  In  the  case  of  this,  as 
of  so  many  of  Wordsworth's  productions,  our  first  dissat- 
isfaction at  the  form  which  the  poem  assumes  yields  to  a 
recognition  of  its  fitness  to  express  precisely  what  the  poet 
intends.  Nor  are  there  many  men  who,  in  recounting  the 
story  of  their  own  lives,  could  combine  a  candour  so  abso- 
lute with  so  much  of  dignity ;  who  could  treat  their  per- 
sonal history  so  impartially  as  a  means  of  conveying  les- 
sons of  general  truth  ;  or  who,  while  chronicling  such  small 
things,  could  remain  so  great.  The  Prelude  is  a  book  of 
good  augury  for  human  nature.  We  feel  in  reading  it  as 
if  the  stock  of  mankind  were  sound.  The  soul  seems  go- 
ing on  from  strength  to  strength  by  the  mere  development 
of  her  inborn  power.  And  the  scene  with  which  the  poem 
at  once  opens  and  concludes — the  return  to  the  Lake  coun- 
try as  to  a  permanent  and  satisfying  home  —  places  the 
poet  at  last  amid  his  true  surroundings,  and  leaves  us  to 
contemplate  him  as  completed  by  a  harmony  without 
him,  which  he  of  all  men  most  needed  to  evoke  the  har- 
mony within. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    ENGLISH    LAKES. 

The  lakes  and  mountains  of  Cumberland,  Westmoreland, 
and  Lancashire  are  singularly  fitted  to  supply  such  ele- 
ments of  moral  sustenance  as  nature's  aspects  can  afford 
to  man.  There  are,  indeed,  many  mountain  regions  of 
greater  awf ulness ;  but  prospects  of  ice  and  terror  should 
be  a  rare  stimulant  rather  than  an  habitual  food ;  and  the 
physical  difficulties  inseparable  from  immense  elevations 
depress  the  inhabitant  and  preoccupy  the  traveller.  There 
are  many  lakes  under  a  more  lustrous  sky ;  but  the  healthy 
activities  of  life  demand  a  scene  brilliant  without  languor, 
and  a  beauty  which  can  refresh  and  satisfy  rather  than  lull 
or  overpower.  Without  advancing  any  untenable  claim 
to  British  pre-eminence  in  the  matter  of  scenery,  we  may, 
perhaps,  follow'  on  both  these  points  the  judgment  which 
Wordsworth  has  expressed  in  his  Guide  to  the  Lakes,  a 
work  which  condenses  the  results  of  many  years  of  inti- 
mate observation. 

"  Our  tracts  of  wood  and  water,"  he  says, "  are  almost 
diminutive  in  comparison  (with  Switzerland) ;  therefore, 
as  far  as  sublimity  is  dependent  upon  absolute  bulk  and 
height,  and  atmospherical  influences  in  connexion  with 
these,  it  is  obvious  that  there  can  be  no  rivalship.  But 
a  short  residence  among  the  British  mountains  will  fur- 


CHAP.  IV.]  THE  ENGLISH  LAKEa  39 

nish  abundant  proof  that,  after  a  certain  point  of  eleva- 
tion, viz.,  that  which  allows  of  compact  and  fleecy  clouds 
settling  upon,  or  sweeping  over,  the  summits,  the  sense  of 
sublimity  depends  more  upon  form  and  relation  of  objects 
to  each  other  than  upon  their  actual  magnitude ;  and  that 
an  elevation  of  3000  feet  is  suflBcient  to  call  forth  in  a 
most  impressive  degree  the  creative,  and  magnifying,  and 
softening  powers  of  the  atmosphere." 

And  again,  as  to  climate:  "The  rain,"  he  says,  "here 
comes  down  heartily,  and  is  frequently  succeeded  by  clear 
bright  weather,  when  every  brook  is  vocal,  and  every  tor- 
rent sonorous ;  brooks  and  torrents  which  are  never  muddy 
even  in  the  heaviest  floods.  Days  of  unsettled  weather, 
with  partial  showers,  are  very  frequent ;  but  the  showers, 
darkening  or  brightening  as  they  fly  from  hill  to  hill,  are 
not  less  grateful  to  the  eye  than  finely  interwoven  pas- 
sages of  gay  and  sad  music  are  touching  to  the  ear.  Va- 
pours exhaling  from  the  lakes  and  meadows  after  sunrise 
in  a  hot  season,  or  in  moist  weather  brooding  upon  the 
heights,  or  descending  towards  the  valleys  with  inaudible 
motion,  give  a  visionary  character  to  everything  around 
them ;  and  are  in  themselves  so  beautiful  as  to  dispose  us 
to  enter  into  the  feelings  of  those  simple  nations  (such  as 
the  Laplanders  of  this  day)  by  whom  they  are  taken  for 
guardian  deities  of  the  mountains ;  or  to  sympathize  with 
others  who  have  fancied  these  delicate  apparitions  to  be 
the  spirits  of  their  departed  ancestors.  Akin  to  these  are 
fleecy  clouds  resting  upon  the  hill-tops :  they  are  not  easi- 
ly managed  in  picture,  with  their  accompaniments  of  blue 
sky,  but  how  glorious  are  they  in  nature !  how  pregnant 
with  imagination  for  the  poet!  And  the  height  of 
the  Cumbrian  mountains  is  sufiScient  to  exhibit  daily 
and   hourly  instances   of  those   mysterious  attachments. 


40  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

Such  clouds,  cleaving  to  their  stations,  or  lifting  up  sud- 
denly their  glittering  heads  from  behind  rocky  barriers, 
or  hurrying  out  of  sight  with  speed  of  the  sharpest  edge, 
will  often  tempt  an  inhabitant  to  congratulate  himself  on 
belonging  to  a  country  of  mists  and  clouds  and  storms, 
and  make  him  think  of  the  blank  sky  of  Egypt,  and  of  the 
cerulean  vacancy  of  Italy,  as  an  unanimated  and  even  a  sad 
spectacle." 

The  consciousness  of  a  preceding  turmoil  brings  home 
to  us  best  the  sense  of  perfect  peace ;  and  a  climate  accus- 
tomed to  storm-cloud  and  tempest  can  melt  sometimes 
into  "  a  day  as  still  as  heaven,"  with  a  benignant  tranquil- 
lity which  calmer  regions  can  scarcely  know.  Such  a  day 
Wordsworth  has  described  in  language  of  such  delicate 
truth  and  beauty  as  only  a  long  and  intimate  love  can 
inspire : 

"  It  has  been  said  that  in  human  life  there  are  moments  worth 
ages.  In  a  more  subdued  tone  of  sympathy  may  we  affirm,  that  in 
the  climate  of  England  there  are,  for  the  lover  of  nature,  days  which 
are  worth  whole  months,  I  might  say,  even  years.  One  of  these  fa- 
voured days  sometimes  occurs  in  spring-time,  when  that  soft  air  is 
breathing  over  the  blossoms  and  new-born  verdure  which  inspired 
Buchanan  with  his  beautiful  Ode  to  the  First  of  May ;  the  air  which, 
in  the  luxuriance  of  his  fancy,  he  likens  to  that  of  the  golden  age — 
to  that  which  gives  motion  to  the  funereal  cypresses  on  the  banks  of 
Lethe ;  to  the  air  which  is  to  salute  beatified  spirits  when  expiatory 
fires  shall  have  consumed  the  earth  with  all  her  habitations.  But  it 
is  in  autumn  that  days  of  such  affecting  influence  most  frequently  in- 
tervene. The  atmosphere  seems  refined,  and  the  sky  rendered  more 
crystalline,  as  the  vivifying  heat  of  the  year  abates ;  the  lights  and 
shadows  are  more  delicate;  the  colouring  is  richer  and  more  finely 
harmonized ;  and,  in  this  season  of  stillness,  the  ear  being  unoccu- 
pied, or  only  gently  excited,  the  sense  of  vision  becomes  more  Suscep- 
tible of  its  appropriate  enjoyments.  A  resident  in  a  country  like  this 
which  we  are  treating  of  will  agree  with  me  that  the  presence  of  ft 


IT.]  THE  ENGLISH  LAKES.  41 

lake  is  indispensable  to  exhibit  in  perfection  the  beauty  of  one  of 
these  days  ;  and  he  must  have  experienced,  while  looking  on  the  un- 
raflBed  waters,  that  the  imagination  by  their  aid  is  carried  into  recess- 
es of  feeling  otherwise  impenetrable.  The  reason  of  this  is,  that  the 
heavens  are  not  only  brought  down  into  the  bosom  of  the  earth,  but 
that  the  earth  is  mainly  looked  at,  and  thought  of,  through  the  me- 
dium of  a  purer  element.  The  happiest  time  is  when  the  equinoctial 
gales  are  departed ;  but  their  fury  may  probably  be  called  to  mind 
by  the  sight  of  a  few  shattered  boughs,  whose  leaves  do  not  differ  in 
colour  from  the  faded  foliage  of  the  stately  oaks  from  which  these 
relics  of  the  storm  depend:  all  else  speaks  of  tranquillity;  not  a 
breath  of  air,  no  restlessness  of  insects,  and  not  a  moving  object  per- 
ceptible—except the  clouds  gliding  in  the  depths  of  the  lake,  or  the 
traveller  passing  along,  an  inverted  image,  whose  motion  seems  gov- 
erned by  the  quiet  of  a  time  to  which  its  archetype,  the  living  per- 
son, is  perhaps  insensible ;  or  it  may  happen  that  the  figure  of  one 
of  the  larger  birds,  a  raven  or  a  heron,  is  crossing  silently  among  the 
reflected  clouds,  while  the  voice  of  the  real  bird,  from  the  element 
aloft,  gently  awakens  in  the  spectator  the  recollection  of  appetites 
and  instincts,  pursuits  and  occupations,  that  deform  and  agitate  the 
world,  yet  have  no  power  to  prevent  nature  from  putting  on  an  as- 
pect capable  of  satisfying  the  most  intense  cravings  for  the  tranquil, 
the  lovely,  and  the  perfect,  to  which  man,  the  noblest  of  her  creat- 
ures, is  subject." 

The  scene  described  here  is  one  as  exquisite  in  detail  as 
majestic  in  general  effect.  And  it  is  characteristic  of  the 
region  to  which  Wordsworth's  love  was  given  that  there  is 
no  corner  of  it  without  a  meaning  and  a  charm ;  that  the 
open  record  of  its  immemorial  past  tells  us  at  every  turn 
that  all  agencies  have  conspired  for  loveliness  and  ruin  it- 
self has  been  benign.  A  passage  of  Wordsworth's  describ- 
ing the  character  of  the  lake -shores  illustrates  this  fact 
with  loving  minuteness : 

'*  Sublimity  is  the  result  of  nature's  first  great  dealings  with  the 
superficies  of  the  Earth ;  but  the  general  tendency  of  her  subsequent 
operations  is  towards  the  production  of  beauty,  by  a  multiplicity  of 


42  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

symmetrical  parts  uniting  in  a  consistent  whole.  This  is  everywhere 
exemplified  along  the  margins  of  these  lakes.  Masses  of  rock,  that 
have  been  precipitated  from  the  heights  into  the  area  of  waters,  lie 
in  some  places  like  stranded  ships,  or  have  acquired  the  compact 
structure  of  jutting  piers,  or  project  in  little  peninsulas  crested  with 
native  wood.  The  smallest  rivulet,  one  whose  silent  influx  is  scarce- 
ly noticeable  in  a  season  of  dry  weather,  so  faint  is  the  dimple  made 
by  it  on  the  surface  of  the  smooth  lake,  will  be  found  to  have  been 
not  useless  in  shaping,  by  its  deposits  of  gravel  and  soil  in  time  of 
flood,  a  curve  that  would  not  otherwise  have  existed.  But  the  more 
powerful  brooks,  encroaching  upon  the  level  of  the  lake,  have,  in 
course  of  time,  given  birth  to  ample  promontories  of  sweeping  out- 
line, that  contrast  boldly  with  the  longitudinal  base  of  the  steeps  on 
the  opposite  shore ;  while  their  flat  or  gently-sloping  surfaces  never 
fail  to  introduce,  into  the  midst  of  desolation  and  barrenness,  the  el- 
ements of  fertility,  even  where  the  habitations  of  men  may  not  have 
been  raised." 

With  this  we  may  contrast,  as  a  companion  picture,  the 
poet's  description  of  the  tarns,  or  lonely  bodies  of  water, 
which  lie  here  and  there  among  the  hills : 

"  They  are  diflScult  of  access  and  naked ;  yet  some  of  them  are,  in 
their  permanent  forms,  very  grand,  and  there  are  accidents  of  things 
which  would  make  the  meanest  of  them  interesting.  At  all  events, 
one  of  these  pools  is  an  acceptable  sight  to  the  mountain  wanderer, 
not  merely  as  an  incident  that  diversifies  the  prospect,  but  as  form- 
ing in  his  mind  a  centre  or  conspicuous  point  to  which  objects,  other- 
wise disconnected  or  insubordinated,  may  be  referred.  Some  few 
have  a  varied  outline,  with  bold  heath  -  clad  promontories ;  and  as 
they  mostly  lie  at  the  foot  of  a  steep  precipice,  the  water,  where  the 
sun  is  not  shining  upon  it,  appears  black  and  sullen,  and  round  the 
margin  huge  stones  and  masses  of  rock  are  scattered,  some  defying 
conjecture  as  to  the  means  by  which  they  came  thither,  and  others 
obviously  fallen  from  on  high,  the  contribution  of  ages.  A  not  un- 
pleasing  sadness  is  induced  by  this  perplexity  and  these  images  of 
decay ;  while  the  prospect  of  a  body  of  pure  water,  unattended  with 
groves  and  other  cheerful  rural  images  by  which  fresh  water  is  usu- 
ally accompanied,  and  unable  to  give  furtherance  to  the  meagre  veg- 


IT.]  THE  ENGLISH  LAKES.  48 

etation  around  it,  excites  a  sense  of  some  repulsive  power  strongly 
put  forth,  and  thus  deepens  the  melancholy  natural  to  such  scenes." 


To  those  who  love  to  deduce  the  character  of  a  popu- 
lation from  the  character  of  their  race  and  surroundings 
the  peasantry  of  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland  form  an 
attractive  theme.  Drawn  in  great  part  from  the  strong 
Scandinavian  stock,  they  dwell  in  a  land  solemn  and 
beautiful  as  Norway  itself,  but  without  Norway's  rigour 
and  penury,  and  with  still  lakes  and  happy  rivers  instead 
of  Norway's  inarming  melancholy  sea.  They  are  a  moun- 
tain folk ;  but  their  mountains  are  no  precipices  of  insu- 
perable snow,  such  as  keep  the  dwellers  in  some  Swiss 
hamlet  shut  in  ignorance  and  stagnating  into  idiocy. 
These  barriers  divide  only  to  concentrate,  and  environ 
only  to  endear ;  their  guardianship  is  but  enough  to  give 
an  added  unity  to  each  group  of  kindred  homes.  And 
thus  it  is  that  the  Cumbrian  dalesmen  have  afforded 
perhaps  as  near  a  realization  as  human  fates  have  yet 
allowed  of  the  rural  society  which  statesmen  desire  for 
their  country's  greatness.  They  have  given  an  example 
of  substantial  comfort  strenuously  won ;  of  home  affec- 
tions intensified  by  independent  strength  ;  of  isolation 
without  ignorance,  and  of  a  shrewd  simplicity ;  of  an 
hereditary  virtue  which  needs  no  support  from  fanaticism, 
and  to  which  honour  is  more  than  law. 

The  school  of  political  economists,  moreover,  who  urge 
the  advantage  of  a  peasant  proprietary,  of  small  inde- 
pendent holdings — as  at  once  drawing  from  the  land  the 
fullest  produce  and  rearing  upon  it  the  most  vigorous 
and  provident  population — this  school,  as  is  well  known, 
finds  in  the  statesmen  of  Cumberland  one  of  its  favourite 
examples.  In  the  days  of  border-wars,  when  the  first  ob- 
D       3  17 


44  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

ject  was  to  secure  the  existence  of  as  many  armed  men 
as  possible,  in  readiness  to  repel  the  Scot,  the  abbeys  and 
great  proprietors  in  the  north  readily  granted  small  estates 
on  military  tenure,  which  tenure,  when  personal  service 
in  the  field  was  no  longer  needed,  became  in  most  cases 
an  absolute  ownership.  The  attachment  of  these  states- 
men to  their  hereditary  estates,  the  heroic  efforts  which 
they  would  make  to  avoid  parting  with  them,  formed  an 
impressive  phenomenon  in  the  little  world — a  world  at 
once  of  equality  and  of  conservatism  —  which  was  the 
scene  of  Wordsworth's  childish  years,  and  which  remained 
his  manhood's  ideal. 

The  growth  of  large  fortunes  in  England,  and  the  in- 
creased competition  for  land,  has  swallowed  up  many  of 
these  small  independent  holdings  in  the  extensive  prop- 
erties of  wealthy  men.  And  at  the  same  time  the  spread 
of  education,  and  the  improved  poor-laws  and  other  leg- 
islation, by  raising  the  condition  of  other  parts  of  Eng- 
land, have  tended  to  obliterate  the  contrast  which  was  so 
marked  in  Wordsworth's  day.  How  marked  that  con- 
trast was,  a  comparison  of  Crabbe's  poems  with  Words- 
worth's will  sufficiently  indicate.  Both  are  true  painters ; 
but  while  in  the  one  we  see  poverty  as  something  gross 
and  degrading,  and  the  Tales  of  the  Village  stand  out 
from  a  background  of  pauperism  and  crime ;  in  the  other 
picture  poverty  means  nothing  worse  than  privation,  and 
the  poet  in  the  presence  of  the  most  tragic  outcast  of 
fortune  could  still 

"  Have  laughed  himself  to  scorn  to  find 
In  that  decrepit  man  so  firm  a  mind." 

Nay,  even  when  a  state  far  below  the  Leech- Gatherer's  has 
been  reached,  and  mind  and  body  alike  are  in  their  last 


ir.]  THE  ENGLISH  LAKES.  45 

decay,  the  life  of  the  Old  Cumberland  Bee/gar^  at  one  re- 
move from  nothingness,  has  yet  a  dignity  and  a  useful- 
ness of  its  own.  His  fading  days  are  passed  in  no  sad 
asylum  of  vicious  or  gloomy  age,  but  amid  neighbourly 
kindnesses,  and  in  the  sanity  of  the  open  air ;  and  a  life 
that  is  reduced  to  its  barest  elements  has  yet  a  hold  on 
the  liberality  of  nature  and  the  affections  of  human  hearts. 
So  long  as  the  inhabitants  of  a  region  so  solitary  and 
beautiful  have  neither  many  arts  nor  many  wishes,  save 
such  as  the  nature  which  they  know  has  suggested,  and 
their  own  handiwork  can  satisfy,  so  long  are  their  presence 
and  habitations  likely  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  scenes 
around  them.  Nay,  man's  presence  is  almost  always 
needed  to  draw  out  the  full  meaning  of  Nature,  to  illus- 
trate her  bounty  by  his  glad  well-being,  and  to  hint  by 
his  contrivances  of  precaution  at  her  might  and  terror. 
Wordsworth's  description  of  the  cottages  of  Cumberland 
depicts  this  unconscious  adaptation  of  man's  abode  to  his 
surroundings,  with  an  eye  which  may  be  called  at  pleas- 
ure that  of  painter  or  of  poet. 

"  The  dwelling-houses  and  contiguous  out-houses  are  in  many  in- 
stances of  the  colour  of  the  native  rock  out  of  which  they  have  been 
built ;  but  frequently  the  dwelling — or  Fire-house,  as  it  is  ordinarily 
called — has  been  distinguished  from  the  barn  or  byre  by  roughcast 
and  whitewash,  which,  as  the  inhabitants  are  not  hasty  in  renewing 
it,  in  a  few  years  acquires  by  the  influence  of  weather  a  tint  at  once 
sober  and  variegated.  As  these  houses  have  been,  from  father  to 
son,  inhabited  by  persons  engaged  in  the  same  occupations,  yet  nec- 
essarily with  changes  in  their  circumstances,  they  have  received 
without  incongruity  additions  and  accommodations  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  each  successive  occupant,  who,  being  for  the  most  part  pro- 
prietor, was  at  liberty  to  follow  his  own  fancy,  so  that  these  humble 
dwellings  remind  the  contemplative  spectator  of  a  production  of 
nature,  and  may  (using  a  strong  expression)  rather  be  said  to  have 
grown  than  to  have  been  erected — to  have  risen,  by  an  instinct  of 


46  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

their  own,  out  of  the  native  rock — so  little  is  there  in  them  of  for- 
mality, such  is  their  wildness  and  beauty. 

"  These  dwellings,  mostly  built,  as  has  been  said,  of  rough  unhewn 
stone,  are  roofed  with  slates,  which  were  rudely  taken  from  the 
quarry  before  the  present  art  of  splitting  them  was  understood,  and 
are  therefore  rough  and  uneven  in  their  surface,  so  that  both  the 
coverings  and  sides  cf  the  houses  have  furnished  places  of  rest  for 
the  seeds  of  lichens,  mosses,  ferns,  and  flowers.  Hence  buildings, 
which  in  their  very  form  call  to  mind  the  processes  of  nature,  do 
thus,  clothed  in  part  with  a  vegetable  garb,  appear  to  be  received 
into  the  bosom  of  the  living  principle  of  things,  as  it  acts  and  exists 
among  the  woods  and  fields,  and  by  their  colour  and  their  shape 
affectingly  direct  the  thoughts  to  that  tranquil  course  of  nature  and 
simplicity  along  which  the  humble-minded  inhabitants  have  through 
80  many  generations  been  led.  Add  the  little  garden  with  its  shed 
for  bee-hives,  its  small  bed  of  potherbs,  and  its  borders  and  patches 
of  flowers  for  Sunday  posies,  with  sometimes  a  choice  few  too  much 
prized  to  be  plucked ;  an  orchard  of  proportioned  size ;  a  cheese- 
press,  often  supported  by  some  tree  near  the  door ;  a  cluster  of 
embowering  sycamores  for  summer  shade,  with  a  tall  fir  through 
which  the  winds  sing  when  other  trees  are  leafless ;  the  little  rill 
or  household  spout  murmuring  in  all  seasons :  combine  these  in- 
cidents and  images  together,  and  you  have  the  representative  idea 
of  a  mountain  cottage  in  this  country — so  beautifully  formed  in 
itself,  and  so  richly  adorned  by  the  hand  of  Nature." 

These  brief  descriptions  may  suffice  to  indicate  the 
general  character  of  a  district  which  in  Wordsworth's 
early  days  had  a  distinctive  unity  which  he  was  the  first 
fully  to  appreciate,  which  was  at  its  best  during  his  long 
lifetime,  and  which  has  already  begun  to  disappear.  The 
mountains  had  waited  long  for  a  full  adoration,  an  in- 
telligent worship.  At  last  "  they  were  enough  beloved." 
And  if  now  the  changes  wrought  around  them  recall  too 
often  the  poet's  warning,  how 

"  All  that  now  delights  thee,  from  the  day 
On  which  it  should  be  touched,  shall  melt,  and  melt  away — " 


IT.]  THE  ENGLISH  LAKES.  47 

yet  they  have  gained  something  which  cannot  be  taken 
from  them.  Not  mines,  nor  railways,  nor  monster  ex- 
cursions, nor  reservoirs,  nor  Manchester  herself,  "  toute 
entiere  a  sa  proie  attachee,"  can  deprive  late  and  hill  of 
Wordsworth's  memory,  and  the  love  which  once  they 
knew. 

Wordsworth's  life  was  from  the  very  first  so  ordered  as 
to  give  him  the  most  complete  and  intimate  knowledge 
both  of  district  and  people.  There  was  scarcely  a  mile  of 
ground  in  the  Lake  country  over  which  he  had  not  wan- 
dered ;  scarcely  a  prospect  which  was  not  linked  with  his 
life  by  some  tie  of  memory.  Born  at  Cockermouth,  on 
the  outskirts  of  the  district,  his  mind  was  gradually  led 
on  to  its  beauty ;  and  his  first  recollections  were  of  Der- 
went's  grassy  holms  and  rocky  falls,  with  Skiddaw,  "bronzed 
with  deepest  radiance,"  towering  in  the  eastern  sky.  Sent 
to  school  at  Hawkshead  at  eight  years  old,  Wordsworth's 
scene  was  transferred  to  the  other  extremity  of  the  Lake 
district.  It  was  in  this  quaint  old  town,  on  the  banks  of 
Esthwaite  Water,  that  the  "fair  seed-time  of  his  soul" 
was  passed ;  it  was  here  that  his  boyish  delight  in  exercise 
and  adventure  grew,  and  melted  in  its  turn  into  a  more 
impersonal  yearning,  a  deeper  absorption  into  the  beauty 
and  the  wonder  of  the  world.  And  even  the  records  of 
his  boyish  amusements  come  to  us  each  on  a  background 
of  nature's  majesty  and  calm.  Setting  springs  for  wood- 
cock on  the  grassy  moors  at  night,  at  nine  years  old,  he 
feels  himself  "  a  trouble  to  the  peace  "  that  dwells  among 
the  moon  and  stars  overhead ;  and  when  he  has  appro- 
priated a  woodcock  caught  by  somebody  else,  "  sounds  of 
undistinguishable  motion "  embody  the  viewless  pursuit 
of  Nemesis  among  the  solitary  hills.  In  the  perilous 
search  for  the  raven's  nest,  as  he  hangs  on  the  face  of  the 


48  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

naked  crags  of  Yewdale,  he  feels  for  the  first  time  that 
sense  of  detachment  from  external  things  which  a  position 
of  strange  unreality  will  often  force  on  the  mind. 

"  Oh,  at  that  time 
When  on  the  perilous  ridge  I  hung  alone, 
With  what  strange  utterance  did  the  loud  dry  wind 
Blow  through  my  ear !  the  sky  seemed  not  a  sky 
Of  earth — and  with  what  motion  moved  the  clouds !" 

The  innocent  rapine  of  nutting  taught  him  to  feel  that 
there  is  a  spirit  in  the  woods — a  presence  which  too  rude 
a  touch  of  ours  will  desecrate  and  destroy. 

The  neighbouring  lakes  of  Coniston,  Esthwaite,  Winder- 
mere, have  left  similar  traces  of  the  gradual  upbuilding  of 
his  spirit.  It  was  on  a  promontory  on  Coniston  that  the 
»un's  last  rays,  gilding  the  eastern  hills  above  which  he 
Vad  first  appeared,  suggested  the  boy's  first  impulse  of 
spontaneous  poetry,  in  the  resolve  that,  wherever  life  should 
lead  him,  his  last  thoughts  should  fall  on  the  scenes  where 
his  childhood  was  passing  now.  It  was  on  Esthwaite  that 
the  "huge  peak"  of  Wetherlam,  following  him  (as  it 
seemed)  as  he  rowed  across  the  starlit  water,  suggested  the 
dim  conception  of  "  unknown  modes  of  being,"  and  a  life 
that  is  not  ours.  It  was  round  Esthwaite  that  the  boy 
used  to  wander  with  a  friend  at  early  dawn,  rejoicing  in 
the  charm  of  words  in  tuneful  order,  and  repeating  to- 
gether their  favourite  verses,  till  "sounds  of  exultation 
echoed  through  the  groves."  It  was  on  Esthwaite  that 
the  band  of  skaters  "hissed  along  the  polished  ice  in 
games  confederate,"  from  which  Wordsworth  would  some- 
times withdraw  himself  and  pause  suddenly  in  full  career, 
to  feel  in  that  dizzy  silence  the  mystery  of  a  rolling  world. 

A  passage,  less  f re(|ueutly  quoted,  in  describing  a  bo^t- 


IT,]  THE  ENGLISH  LAKES.  49 

ing  excursion  on  Windermere  illustrates  the  effect  of  some 
small  point  of  human  interest  in  concentrating  and  realis- 
ing the  diffused  emotion  which  radiates  from  a  scene  of 

beauty : 

"  But,  ere  nightfall, 
When  in  our  pinnace  we  returned  at  leisure 
Over  the  shadowy  lake,  and  to  the  beach 
Of  some  small  island  steered  our  course  with  one, 
The  minstrel  of  the  troop,  and  left  him  there, 
And  rowed  off  gently,  while  he  blew  his  flute 
Alone  upon  the  rock — oh,  then  the  calm 
And  dead  still  water  lay  upon  my  mind 
Even  with  a  weight  of  pleasure,  and  the  sky, 
Never  before  so  beautiful,  sank  down 
Into  my  heart,  and  held  me  Uke  a  dream !" 

The  passage  which  describes  the  school-boy's  call  to  the 
owls — the  lines  of  which  Coleridge  said  that  he  should 
have  exclaimed  "  Wordsworth !"  if  he  had  met  them  run- 
ning wild  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia  —  paints  a  somewhat 
similar  rush  of  feeling  with  a  still  deeper  charm.  The 
"gentle  shock  of  mild  surprise"  which  in  the  pauses  of 
the  birds'  jocund  din  carries  far  into  his  heart  the  sound 
of  mountain  torrents — the  very  mingling  of  the  grotesque 
and  the  majestic — brings  home  the  contrast  between  our 
transitory  energies  and  the  mystery  around  us  which  re- 
turns ever  the  same  to  the  moments  when  we  pause  and 
are  at  peace. 

It  is  round  the  two  small  lakes  of  Grasmere  and  Rydal 
that  the  memories  of  Wordsworth  are  most  thickly  clus- 
tered. On  one  or  other  of  these  lakes  he  lived  for  fifty 
years — the  first  half  of  the  present  century ;  and  there  is 
not  in  all  that  region  a  hill-side  walk  or  winding  valley 
which  has  not  heard  him  murmuring  out  his  verses  as 
they  slowly  rose  from  his  heart.     The  cottage  at  Town- 


60  WORDSWORTH.  [chap„ 

end,  Grasmere,  where  he  firsi  settled,  is  now  surrounded 
by  the  out-buildings  of  a  busy  hotel,  and  the  noisy  stream 
of  traffic,  and  the  sight  of  the  many  villas  which  spot  the 
valley,  give  a  new  pathos  to  the  sonnet  in  which  Words- 
worth deplores  the  alteration  which  even  his  own  residence 
might  make  in  the  simplicity  of  the  lonely  scene ; 

**  Well  may'st  thou  halt,  and  gaze  with  brightening  eye  I 
The  lovely  cottage  in  the  guardian  nook 
Hath  stirred  thee  deeply ;  with  its  own  dear  brook, 
Its  own  small  pasture,  almost  its  own  sky ! 
But  covet  not  the  abode :  forbear  to  sigh, 
As  many  do,  repining  while  they  look ; 
Intruders — who  would  tear  from  Nature's  book 
This  precious  leaf  with  harsh  impiety. 
Think  what  the  home  must  be  if  it  were  thine, 
Even  thine,  though  few  thy  wants !     Roof,  window,  door, 
The  very  flowers  are  sacred  to  the  poor, 
The  roses  to  the  porch  which  they  entwine ; 
Yea,  all  that  now  enchants  thee,  from  the  day 
On  which  it  should  be  touched,  would  melt,  and  melt  away." 

The  Poems  on  the  Naming  of  Places  belong  for  the 
most  part  to  this  neighbourhood.  Emma's  Dell  on  Eas- 
dale  Beck,  Point  Rash-Judgment  on  the  eastern  shore  of 
Grasmere,  Mary's  Pool  in  Rydal  Park,  William's  Peak  on 
Stone  Arthur,  Joanna's  Pock  on  the  banks  of  Rotha,  and 
John's  Grove  near  White  Moss  Common,  have  been  iden- 
tified by  the  loving  search  of  those  to  whom  every  memo- 
rial, of  that  simple-hearted  family  group  has  still  a  charm. 

It  is  on  Greenhead  Ghyll — "upon  the  forest -side  in 
Grasmere  Vale  " — that  the  poet  has  laid  the  scene  of  Mi- 
chael, the  poem  which  paints  with  such  detailed  fidelity 
both  the  inner  and  the  outward  life  of  a  typical  West- 
moreland "statesman."  And  the  upper  road  from  Gras- 
mere to  Rydal,  superseded  now  by  the  road  along  the  lake- 


IT.]  THE  ENGLISH  LAKES.  61 

side,  and  left  as  a  winding  foot-path  among  rock  and  fem, 
was  one  of  his  most  habitual  haunts.  Of  another  such 
haunt  his  friend  Lady  Richardson  says,  "  The  Prelude  was 
chiefly  composed  in  a  green  mountain  terrace,  on  the  Eas- 
dale  side  of  Helm  Crag,  known  by  the  name  of  Under  Lan- 
crigg,  a  place  which  he  used  to  say  he  knew  by  heart.  The 
ladies  sat  at  their  work  on  the  hill-side,  while  he  walked  to 
and  fro  on  the  smooth  green  mountain  turf,  humming  out 
his  verses  to  himself,  and  then  repeating  them  to  his  sym- 
pathising and  ready  scribes,  to  be  noted  down  on  the  spot, 
and  transcribed  at  home." 

The  neighbourhood  of  the  poet's  later  home  at  Rydal 
Mount  is  equally  full  of  associations.  Two  of  the  Evening 
Voluntaries  were  composed  by  the  side  of  Rydal  Mere. 
The  Wild  Duck^s  Nest  was  on  one  of  the  Rydal  islands. 
It  was  on  the  fells  of  Loughrigg  that  the  poet's  fancy 
loved  to  plant  an  imperial  castle.  And  WansfelVs  green 
slope  still  answers  with  many  a  change  of  glow  and  shad- 
ow to  the  radiance  of  the  sinking  sun. 

Hawkshead  and  Rydal,  then,  may  be  considered  as  the 
poet's  principal  centres,  and  the  scenery  in  their  neigh- 
bourhood has  received  his  most  frequent  attention.  The 
Duddon,  a  seldom-visited  stream  on  the  south-west  border 
of  the  Lake  district,  has  been  traced  by  him  from  source 
to  outfall  in  a  series  of  sonnets.  Langdale,  and  Little 
Langdale,  with  Blea  Tarn  lying  in  it,  form  the  principal 
scene  of  the  discourses  in  the  Excursion.  The  more  dis- 
tant lakes  and  mountains  were  often  visited,  and  are  often 
alluded  to.  The  scene  of  The  Brothers,  for  example,  is 
laid  in  Ennerdale ;  and  the  index  of  the  minor  poems  will 
supply  other  instances.  But  it  is  chiefly  round  two  lines 
of  road  leading  from  Grasmere  that  Wordsworth's  associa- 
tions cluster — the  route  over  Dunmailraise,  which  led  him 
3* 


62  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

to  Keswick,  to  Coleridge  and  Southey  at  Greta  Hall,  and 
to  other  friends  in  that  neighbourhood;  and  the  route 
over  Kirkstone,  which  led  him  to  Ullswater,  and  the  friend- 
ly houses  of  Patterdale,  Hallsteads,  and  Lowther  Castle. 
The  first  of  these  two  routes  was  that  over  which  the 
Waggoner  plied;  it  skirts  the  lovely  shore  of  Thirlmere 
— a  lonely  sheet  of  water,  of  exquisite  irregularity  of  out- 
line, and  fringed  with  delicate  verdure,  which  the  Corpora- 
tion of  Manchester  has  lately  bought  to  embank  it  into  a 
reservoir.  Dedecorum  pretiosus  emptor!  This  lake  was 
a  favourite  haunt  of  Wordsworth's;  and  upon  a  rock  on 
its  margin,  where  he  and  Coleridge,  coming  from  Keswick 
and  Grasmere,  would  often  meet,  the  two  poets,  with  the 
other  members  of  Wordsworth's  loving  household  group, 
inscribed  the  initial  letters  of  their  names.  To  the  "  mon- 
umental power  "  of  this  Rock  of  Names  Wordsworth  ap- 
peals, in  lines  written  when  the  happy  company  who  en- 
graved them  had  already  been  severed  by  distance  and 

death : 

"  0  thought  of  pain, 
That  would  impair  it  or  profane  ! 
And  fail  not  Thou,  loved  Rock,  to  keep 
Thy  charge  when  we  are  laid  asleep." 

The  rock  may  still  be  seen,  but  is  to  be  submerged  in  the 
new  reservoir.  In  the  vale  of  Keswick  itself,  Applethwaite, 
Skiddaw,  St.  Herbert's  Island,  Lodore,  are  commemorated 
in  sonnets  or  inscriptions.  And  the  Borrowdale  yew- 
trees  have  inspired  some  of  the  poet's  noblest  lines — lines 
breathing  all  the  strange  forlornness  of  Glaramara's  soli- 
tude, and  the  withering  vault  of  shade. 

The  route  from  Rydal  to  Ullswater  is  still  more  thick- 
ly studded  with  poetic  allusions.  The  Pass  of  Kirkstone 
is  the  theme  of  a  characteristic  ode;  Grisdale  Tarn  an(i 


IV.]  THE  ENGLISH  LAKES.  63 

Helvellyn  recur  again  and  again ;  and  Aira  Force  was  one 
of  the  spots  which  the  poet  best  loved  to  describe,  as  well 
as  to  visit.  It  was  on  the  shores  of  Further  Gowbarrow 
that  the  Daffodils  danced  beneath  the  trees.  These  refer- 
ences might  be  much  further  multiplied;  and  the  loving 
diligence  of  disciples  has  set  before  us  "  the  Lake  district 
as  interpreted  by  Wordsworth"  through  a  multitude  of 
details.  But  enough  has  been  said  to  show  how  com- 
pletely the  poet  had  absorbed  the  influences  of  his  dwell- 
ing-place ;  how  unique  a  representative  he  had  become  of 
the  lovely  district  of  his  birth;  how  he  had  made  it 
subject  to  him  by  comprehending  it,  and  his  own  by 
lovei 

He  visited  other  countries  and  described  other  scenes. 
Scotland,  Wales,  Switzerland,  France,  Germany,  Italy,  have 
all  a  place  in  his  works.  His  familiarity  with  other  sce- 
nery helped  him,  doubtless,  to  a  better  appreciation  of  the 
Lake  country  than  he  could  have  gained  had  he  never  left 
it.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  like  Csesar  in  Gaul,  or  Wel- 
lington in  the  Peninsular,  it  was  because  he  had  so  com- 
plete a  grasp  of  this  chosen  base  of  operations  that  he  was 
able  to  come,  to  see,  and  to  make  his  own,  so  swiftly  and 
unfailingly  elsewhere.  Happy  are  those  whose  deep-rooted 
memories  cling  like  his  about  some  stable  home!  whose 
notion  of  the  world  around  them  has  expanded  from  some 
prospect  of  happy  tranquillity,  instead  of  being  drawn  at 
random  from  the  confusing  city's  roar!  Happier  still  if 
that  early  picture  be  of  one  of  those  rare  scenes  which 
have  inspired  poets  and  prophets  with  the  retrospective 
day-dream  of  a  patriarchal,  or  a  golden  age ;  of  some  plot 
of  ground  like  the  Ithaca  of  Odysseus,  Tpr]yju,  d\X*  ayaOi) 
KovporpoipoQ^  "  rough,  but  a  nurse  of  men ;"  of  some  life 
like  that  which  a  poet  of  kindred  spirit  to  Wordsworth's 


64  WORDSWORTH.  [chap.iv. 

saw  half  in  vision,  half  in  reality,  among  the  husbandmen 
of  the  Italian  hills  : 

*'  Peace,  peace  is  theirs,  and  life  no  fraud  that  knows, 
Wealth  as  they  will,  and  when  they  will,  repose  : 
On  many  a  hill  the  happy  homesteads  stand. 
The  living  lakes  through  many  a  vale  expand ; 
Cool  glens  are  there,  and  shadowy  caves  divine. 
Deep  sleep,  and  far-off  voices  of  the  kine — 
From  moor  to  moor  the  exulting  wild  deer  stray  ; — 
The  strenuous  youth  are  strong  and  sound  as  they ; 
One  reverence  still  the  untainted  race  inspires, 
God  their  first  thought,  and  after  God  their  sires  ;— 
These  last  discerned  Astraea's  flying  hem, 
And  Virtue's  latest  footsteps  walked  with  them." 


CHAPTER  V. 

MARRIAGE. — SOCIETY. HIGHLAND    TOUR. 

With  Wordsworth's  settlement  at  Townend,  Grasmere,  in 
the  closing  days  of  the  last  century,  the  external  events  of 
his  life  may  be  said  to  come  to  an  end.  Even  his  mar- 
riage to  Miss  Mary  Hutchinson,  of  Penrith,  on  October  4, 
1802,  was  not  so  much  an  importation  into  his  existence 
of  new  emotion,  as  a  development  and  intensification  of 
feelings  which  had  long  been  there.  This  marriage  was 
the  crowning  stroke  of  Wordsworth's  felicity — the  poetic 
recompense  for  his  steady  advocacy  of  all  simple  and  noble 
things.  When  he  wished  to  illustrate  the  true  dignity 
and  delicacy  of  rustic  lives  he  was  always  accustomed  to 
refer  to  the  Cumbrian  folk.  And  now  it  seemed  that 
Cumberland  requited  him  for  his  praises  with  her  choicest 
boon  ;  found  for  him  in  the  country  town  of  Penrith,  and 
from  the  small  and  obscure  circle  of  his  connexions  and 
acquaintance — nay,  from  the  same  dame's  school  in  which 
he  was  taught  to  read — a  wife  such  as  neither  rank  nor 
young  beauty  nor  glowing  genius  enabled  his  brother  bards 
to  win. 

Mrs.  Wordsworth's  poetic  appreciativeness,  manifest  to 
all  who  knew  her,  is  attested  by  the  poet's  assertion  that 
two  of  the  best  lines  in  the  poem  of  The  Daffodils — 


M  WORDSWORTH.  [chxp. 

"  They  flash  upon  that  inward  eye 
Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude  "^ 

were  of  her  composition.  And  in  all  other  matters,  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  she  was  to  him  a  true  helpmate, 
a  companion  "  dearer  far  than  life  and  light  are  dear," 
and  able  "  in  his  steep  march  to  uphold  him  to  the  end." 
Devoted  to  her  husband,  she  nevertheless  welco'aied  not 
only  without  jealousy  but  with  delight  the  household  com- 
panionship through  life  of  the  sister  who  formed  so  large 
an  element  in  his  being.  Admiring  the  poet's  genius  to 
the  full,  and  following  the  workings  of  his  mind  with  a 
sympathy  that  never  tired,  she  nevertheless  was  able  to 
discern,  and  with  unobtrusive  care  to  hide  or  avert,  those 
errors  of  manner  into  which  retirement  and  self-absorption 
will  betray  even  the  gentlest  spirit.  It  speaks,  perhaps, 
equally  well  for  Wordsworth's  character  that  this  tendency 
to  a  lengthy  insistence,  in  general  conversation,  on  his  own 
feelings  and  ideas  is  the  worst  charge  that  can  be  brought 
against  him ;  and  for  Mrs.  Wordsworth's,  that  her  simple 
and  rustic  upbringing  had  gifted  her  with  a  manner  so 
gracious  and  a  tact  so  ready  that  in  her  presence  all  things 
could  not  but  go  well. 

The  life  which  the  young  couple  led  was  one  of  primi- 
tive simplicity  In  some  respects  it  was  even  less  luxuri- 
ous than  that  of  the  peasants  around  them.  They  drank 
water,  and  ate  the  simplest  fare.  Miss  Wordsworth  had 
long  rendered  existence  possible  for  her  brother  on  the  nar- 
rowest of  means  by  her  unselfish  energy  and  skill  in  house- 
hold management ;  and  "  plain  living  and  high  thinking  " 
were  equally  congenial  to  the  new  inmate  of  the  frugal 
home.  Wordsworth  gardened ;  and  all  together,  or  often- 
est  the  poet  and  his  sister,  wandered  almost  daily  over  the 
neighbouring  hills.     Narrow  means  did  not  prevent  them 


T.]  MARRIAGE.  57 

from  offering  a  generous  welcome  to  their  few  friends, 
especially  Coleridge  and  his  family,  who  repeatedly  stayed 
for  months  under  Wordsworth's  roof.  Miss  Wordsworth's 
unpublished  letters  breathe  the  very  spirit  of  hospitality 
in  their  naive  details  of  the  little  sacrifices  gladly  made  for 
the  sake  of  the  presence  of  these  honoured  guests.  But 
for  the  most  part  their  life  was  solitary  and  uneventful. 
Books  they  had  few ;  neighbours  almost  none ;  and  Miss 
Wordsworth's  diary  of  these  early  years  describes  a  life 
seldom  paralleled  in  its  intimate  dependence  on  external 
nature.  I  take,  almost  at  random,  her  account  of  a  single 
day.  "  November  24, 1801.  Read  Chaucer.  We  walked 
by  Gell's  cottage.  As  we  were  going  along  we  were  stop- 
ped at  once,  at  the  distance,  perhaps,  of  fifty  yards  from 
our  favourite  birch-tree;  it  was  yielding  to  the  gust  of 
wind,  with  all  its  tender  twigs ;  the  sun  shone  upon  it,  and 
it  glanced  in  the  wind  like  a  flying  sunshiny  shower.  It 
was  a  tree  in  shape,  with  stem  and  branches ;  but  it  was 
like  a  spirit  of  water.  After  our  return  William  read 
Spenser  to  us,  and  then  walked  to  John's  Grove.  Went 
to  meet  W."  And  from  an  unpublished  letter  of  Miss 
Wordsworth's,  of  about  the  same  period  (September  10, 
1800),  I  extract  her  description  of  the  new  home.  "We 
are  daily  more  delighted  with  Grasmere  and  its  neighbour- 
hood. Our  walks  are  perpetually  varied,  and  we  are  more 
fond  of  the  mountains  as  our  acquaintance  with  them  in- 
creases. We  have  a  boat  upon  the  lake,  and  a  small  or- 
chard and  smaller  garden,  which,  as  it  is  the  work  of  our 
own  hands,  we  regard  with  pride  and  partiality.  Our  cot- 
tage is  quite  large  enough  for  us,  though  very  small ;  and 
we  have  made  it  neat  and  comfortable  within  doors;  and 
it  looks  very  nice  on  the  outside ;  for  though  the  roses 
and  honeysuckles  which  we  have  planted  against  it  are 


58  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

only  of  this  year's  growth,  yet  it  is  corered  all  over  with 
green  leaves  and  scarlet  flowers ;  for  we  have  trained  scarlet 
beans  upon  threads,  which  are  not  only  exceedingly  beau- 
tiful but  very  useful,  as  their  produce  is  immense.  We 
have  made  a  lodging-room  of  the  parlour  below  stairs, 
which  has  a  stone  floor,  therefore  we  have  covered  it  all 
over  with  matting.  We  sit  in  a  room  above  stairs,  and 
we  have  one  lodging-room  with  two  single  beds,  a  sort  of 
lumber-room,  and  a  small,  low,  unceiled  room,  which  I  have 
papered  with  newspapers,  and  in  which  we  have  put  a  small 
bed.  Our  servant  is  an  old  woman  of  sixty  years  of  age, 
whom  we  took  partly  out  of  charity.  She  was  very  ignorant, 
very  foolish,  and  very  difficult  to  teach.  But  the  goodness 
of  her  disposition,  and  the  great  convenience  we  should  find 
if  my  perseverance  was  successful,  induced  me  to  go  on." 

The  sonnets  entitled  Personal  Talk  give  a  vivid  picture 
of  the  blessings  of  such  seclusion.  There  are  many  minds 
which  will  echo  the  exclamation  with  which  the  poet  dis- 
misses his  visitors  and  their  gossip  : 

"Better  than  such  discourse  doth  silence  long, 
Long  barren  silence,  square  with  my  desire ; 
To  sit  without  emotion,  hope,  or  aim, 
In  the  loved  presence  of  my  cottage  fire, 
And  hsten  to  the  flapping  of  the  flame, 
Or  kettle  whispering  its  faint  undersong." 

Many  will  look  with  envy  on  a  life  which  has  thus  de- 
cisively cut  itself  loose  from  the  world;  which  is  secure 
from  the  influx  of  those  preoccupations,  at  once  distract- 
ing and  nugatory,  which  deaden  the  mind  to  all  other 
stimulus,  and  split  the  river  of  life  into  channels  so  minute 
that  it  loses  itself  in  the  sand. 

"  Hence  have  I  genial  seasons ;  hence  have  I 
Smooth  passions,  smooth  discourse,  and  Joyous  thought." 


T.]  SOCIETY.  69 

Left  to  herself,  the  mind  can  expatiate  in  those  kingdoms 
of  the  spirit  bequeathed  to  us  by  past  generations  and  dis- 
tant men,  which  to  the  idle  are  but  a  garden  of  idleness, 
but  to  those  who  choose  it  become  a  true  possession  and 
an  ever- widening  home.  Among  those  "  nobler  loves  and 
nobler  cares "  there  is  excitement  without  reaction,  there 
is  an  unwearied  and  impersonal  joy — a  joy  which  can  only 
be  held  cheap  because  it  is  so  abundant,  and  caw  only  dis- 
appoint us  through  our  own  incapacity  to  contain  it. 
These  delights  of  study  and  of  solitude  Wordsworth  en- 
joyed to  the  full.  In  no  other  poet,  perhaps,  have  the 
poet's  heightened  sensibilities  been  productive  of  a  pleas- 
ure so  unmixed  with  pain.  The  wind  of  his  emotions 
blew  right  abaft ;  he  "  swam  smoothly  in  the  stream  of  his 
nature,  and  lived  but  one  man." 

[Tjifis  blessing  of  meditative  and  lonely  hours  must  of 
course  be  purchased  by  corresponding  limitations.  Words- 
worth's conception  of  human  character  retained  to  the  end 
an  extreme  simplicity.  Many  of  life's  most  impressive 
phenomena  were  hid  from  his  eyes.  He  never  encounter- 
ed any  of  those  rare  figures  whosi  aspect  seems  to  justify 
all  traditions  of  pomp  and  pre-eminence  when  they  appear 
amid  stately  scenes  as  with  a  natural  sovereignty.  He 
neither  achieved  nor  underwent  any  of  those  experiences 
which  can  make  all  high  romance  seem  a  part  of  memory, 
and  bestow,  as  it  were,  a  password  and  introduction  into 
the  very  innermost  of  human  fates.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  almost  wholly  escaped  those  sufferings  which  exception- 
al natures  must  nc^ds  derive  from  too  close  a  contact  with 
this  commonplace  world.  It  was  not  his  lot — as  it  has 
been  the  lot  of  so  many  poets — to  move  amongst  mankind 
at  once  as  an  intimate  and  a  stranger;  to  travel  from  dis- 
illusionment to  disillusionment,  and  from  regret  to  regret; 
E  18 


60  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

to  construct  around  him  a  world  of  ideal  beings,  who 
crumble  into  dust  at  his  touch ;  to  hope  from  them  what 
they  can  neither  understand  nor  accomplish,  to  lavish  on 
them  what  they  can  never  repay.  Such  pain,  indeed,  may 
become  a  discipline ;  and  the  close  contact  with  many  lives 
may  teach  to  the  poetic  nature  lessons  of  courage,  of  self- 
suppression,  of  resolute  good-will,  and  may  transform  into 
an  added  dignity  the  tumult  of  emotions  which  might  else 
have  run  riot  in  his  heart.  Yet  it  is  less  often  from  moods 
of  self-control  than  from  moods  of  self-abandonment  that 
the  fount  of  poetry  springs ;  and  herein  it  was  that  Words- 
worth's especial  felicity  lay — that  there  was  no  one  feeling 
in  him  which  the  world  had  either  repressed  or  tainted ; 
that  he  had  no  joy  which  might  not  be  the  harmless  joy 
of  all ;  and  that,  therefore,  it  was  when  he  was  most  unre- 
servedly himself  that  he  was  most  profoundly  human.  All 
that  was  needful  for  him  was  to  strike  down  into  the  deep 
of  his  heart.  Or,  using  his  own  words,  we  may  compare 
his  tranquil  existence  to 

"  A  crystal  river, 
Diaphanous  because  it  travels  slowly ;" 

and  in  which  poetic  thoughts  rose  unimpeded^to  the  sur- 
face, like  bubbles  through  the  pellucid  stream. 

The  first  hint  of  many  of  his  briefer  poem .  is  to  be 
found  in  his  sister's  diary:- 

^^  April  15, 1802. — When  we  were  in  the  woods  below  Gowbarrow 
Park  we  saw  a  few  daffodils  close  to  the  water  side.  As  we  went 
along  there  were  more,  and  yet  more ;  and  at  last,  under  the  boughs 
of  the  trees,  we  saw  there  was  a  long  belt  of  them  along  the  shore. 
I  never  saw  daffodils  so  beautiful.  They  grew  among  the  mossy 
stones  about  them  ;  some  rested  their  heads  on  the  stones  as  on  a  pil- 
low ;  the  rest  tossed,  and  reeled,  and  danced,  and  seemed  as  if  they 
verily  danced  with  the  wind,  they  looked  so  gay  and  glancing." 


V.J  HIGHLAND  TOUR.  61 

'■'■July  30,  1802. — Left  London  between  five  and  six  o'clock  of  the 
morning,  outside  the  Dover  coach.  A  beautiful  morning.  The  city^ 
St.  Paul's,  with  the  river,  a  multitude  of  little  boats,  made  a  beautiful 
sight  as  we  crossed  Westminster  Bridge ;  the  houses  not  overhung  by 
their  clouds  of  smoke,  were  spread  out  endlessly ;  yet  the  sun  shone 
so  brightly,  with  such  a  pure  light,  that  there  was  something  like  the 
purity  of  one  of  nature's  own  grand  spectacles.  Arrived  at  Calais  at 
four  in  the  morning  of  July  31st.  Delightful  walks  in  the  evenings, 
seeing  far  off  in  the  west  the  coast  of  England  like  a  cloud,  crested 
with  Dover  Castle,  the  evening  star,  and  the  glory  of  the  sky.  The 
reflections  in  the  water  were  more  beautiful  than  the  sky  itself ;  pur- 
ple waves  brighter  than  precious  stones  for  ever  melting  away  upon 
the  sands." 

How  simple  are  the  elements  of  these  delights !  There 
is  nothing  here,  except  fraternal  affection,  a  sunrise,  a  sun- 
set, a  flock  of  bright  wild  flowers ;  and  yet  the  sonnets  on 
Westminster  Bridge  and  Calais  Sands,  and  the  stanzas  on 
the  Daffodils,  have  taken  their  place  among  the  permanent 
records  of  the  profoundest  human  joy. 

Another  tour — this  time  through  Scotland — undertaken 
in  August,  1803,  inspired  Wordsworth  with  several  of  his 
best  pieces.  Miss  Wordsworth's  diary  of  this  tour  has 
been  lately  published,  and  should  be  familiar  to  all  lovers 
of  nature.  The  sister's  journal  is,  indeed,  the  best  intro- 
duction to  the  brother's  poems.  It  has  not — it  cannot  have 
— their  dignity  and  beauty ;  but  it  exemplifies  the  same 
method  of  regarding  Nature,  the  same  self -identification 
with  her  subtler  aspects  and  entrance  into  her  profounder 
charm.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  the  same  impres- 
sion strikes  both  minds  at  once.  From  the  sister's  it  is 
quickly  reflected  in  words  of  exquisite  delicacy  and  sim- 
plicity ;  in  the  brother's  it  germinates,  and  reappears,  it 
may  be  months  or  years  afterwards,  as  the  nucleus  of  a 
mass  of  thought  and  feeling  which  has  grown  round  it  in 


62  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

his  musing  soul.  The  travellers'  encounter  with  two  High- 
land girls  on  the  shore  of  Loch  Lomond  is  a  good  instance 
of  this.  "  One  of  the  girls,"  writes  Miss  Wordsworth, 
"  was  exceedingly  beautiful ;  and  the  figures  of  both  of 
them,  in  grey  plaids  falling  to  their  feet,  their  faces  only 
being  uncovered,  excited  our  attention  before  we  spoke  to 
them  ;  but  they  answered  us  so  sweetly  that  we  were  quite 
delighted,  at  the  same  time  that  they  stared  at  us  with  an 
innocent  look  of  wonder.  I  think  I  never  heard  the  Eng- 
lish language  sound  more  sweetly  than  from  the  mouth  of 
the  elder  of  these  girls,  while  she  stood  at  the  gate  answer- 
ing our  inquiries,  her  face  flushed  with  the  rain ;  her  pro- 
nunciation was  clear  and  distinct,  without  diflSculty,  yet 
slow,  as  if  like  a  foreign  speech." 

"A  face  with  gladness  overspread ! 
Soft  smiles,  by  human  kindness  bred ! 
And  seemliness  complete,  that  sways 
Thy  courtesies,  about  thee  plays ; 
With  no  restraint,  but  such  as  springs 
From  quick  and  eager  visitings 
Of  thoughts  that  lie  beyond  the  reach 
Of  thy  few  words  of  English  speech : 
A  bondage  sweetly  brooked,  a  strife 
That  gives  thy  gestures  grace  and  life ! 
So  have  I,  not  unmoved  in  mind. 
Seen  birds  of  tempest-loving  kind 
Thus  beating  up  against  the  wind." 

The  travellers  saw  more  of  this  girl,  and  Miss  Words- 
worth's opinion  was  confirmed.  But  to  Wordsworth  his 
glimpse  of  her  became  a  veritable  romance.  He  commem- 
orated it  in  his  poem  of  The  Highland  Girl,  soon  after 
his  return  from  Scotland ;  he  narrated  it  once  more  in  his 
poem  of  The  Three  Cottage  Girls,  written  nearly  twenty 


v.]  HIGHLAND  TOUR.  63 

years  afterwards ;  and  "  the  sort  of  prophecy,"  he  says  in 
1843,  "with  which  the  verses  conclude  has,  through  God's 
goodness,  been  realized ;  and  now,  approaching  the  close 
of  my  seventy-third  year,  I  have  a  most  vivid  remembrance 
of  her  and  the  beautiful  objects  with  which  she  was  sur- 
rounded." Nay,  more;  he  has  elsewhere  informed  us, 
with  some  naivete,  that  the  first  few  lines  of  his  exquisite 
poem  to  his  wife.  She  was  a  phantom  of  delight,  were 
originally  composed  as  a  description  of  this  Highland 
maid,  who  would  seem  almost  to  have  formed  for  him  ever 
afterwards  a  kind  of  type  and  image  of  loveliness. 

That  such  a  meeting  as  this  should  have  formed  so 
long-remembered  an  incident  in  the  poet's  life  will  appear, 
perhaps,  equally  ridiculous  to  the  philosopher  and  to  the 
man  of  the  world.  The  one  would  have  given  less,  the 
other  would  have  demanded  more.  And  yet  the  quest  of 
beauty,  like  the  quest  of  truth,  reaps  its  surest  reward 
when  it  is  disinterested  as  well  as  keen  ;  and  the  true  lover  • 
of  humankind  will  often  draw  his  most  exquisite  moments 
from  what  to  most  men  seems  but  the  shadow  of  a  joy. 
Especially,  as  in  this  case,  his  heart  will  be  prodigal  of  the 
impulses  of  that  protecting  tenderness  which  it  is  the  bless- 
ing of  early  girlhood  to  draw  forth  unwittingly,  and  to 
enjoy  unknown — affections  which  lead  to  no  declaration, 
and  desire  no  return ;  which  are  the  spontaneous  effluence 
of  the  very  Spirit  of  Love  in  man ;  and  which  play  and 
hover  around  winning  innocence  like  the  coruscations 
round  the  head  of  the  unconscious  lulus,  a  soft  and  un- 
consuming  flame. 

It  was  well,  perhaps,  that  Wordsworth's  romance  should 
come  to  him  in  this  remote  and  fleeting  fashion.  For  to 
the  Priest  of  Nature  it  was  fitting  that  all  things  else 
should  be  harmonious,  indeed,  but   accessory;  that  joy 


64  WORDSWORTH.  [ckap.  v. 

should  not  be  so  keen,  nor  sorrow  so  desolating,  nor  love 
itself  so  wildly  strong,  as  to  prevent  him  from  going  out 
upon  the  mountains  with  a  heart  at  peace,  and  receiving 
"  in  a  wise  passiveness  "  the  voices  of  earth  and  heaven. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SIR    GEORGE    BEAUMONT. DEATH    OF    JOHN   WORDSWORTH. 

The  year  1803  saw  the  beginning  of  a  friendship  whioh 
formed  a  valuable  element  in  Wordsworth's  life.  Sir 
George  Beaumont,  of  Coleorton  Hall,  Essex,  a  descendant 
of  the  dramatist,  and  representative  of  a  family  long  dis- 
tinguished for  talent  and  culture,  was  staying  with  Cole- 
ridge at  Greta  Hall,  Keswick,  when,  hearing  of  Coleridge's 
affection  for  Wordsworth,  he  was  struck  with  the  wish  to 
bring  Wordsworth  also  to  Keswick,  and  bought  and  pre- 
sented to  him  a  beautiful  piece  of  land  at  Applethwaite, 
under  Skiddaw,  in  the  hope  that  he  might  be  induced 
to  settle  there.  Coleridge  was  soon  afterwards  obliged 
to  leave  England  in  search  of  health,  and  the  plan  fell 
through.  A  characteristic  letter  of  Wordsworth's  records 
his  feelings  on  the  occasion.  "Dear  Sir  George,"  he 
writes,  "  if  any  person  were  to  be  informed  of  the  particu- 
lars of  your  kindness  to  me — if  it  were  described  to  him  in 
all  its  delicacy  and  nobleness — and  he  should  afterwards  be 
told  that  I  suffered  eight  weeks  to  elapse  without  writing  to 
you  one  word  of  thanks  or  acknowledgment,  he  would  deem 
it  a  thing  absolutely  impossible.     It  is  nevertheless  true. 

"  Owing  to  a  set  of  painful  and  uneasy  sensations  which 
I  have,  more  or  less,  at  all  times  about  my  chest,  I  deferred 
writing  to  you,  being  at  first  made  still  more  uncomforta- 


66  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

ble  by  travelling,  and  loathing  to  do  violence  to  myself  in 
what  ought  to  be  an  act  of  pure  pleasure  and  enjoyment, 
viz.,  the  expression  of  my  deep  sense  of  your  goodness. 
This  feeling  was  indeed  so  strong  in  me  as  to  make  me 
look  upon  the  act  of  writing  to  you  as  a  thing  not  to  be 
done  but  in  my  best,  my  purest,  and  my  happiest  mo- 
ments. Many  of  these  I  had,  but  then  I  had  not  my  pen, 
ink,  and  paper  before  me,  my  conveniences,  *  my  appli- 
ances and  means  to  boot ;'  all  which,  the  moment  that  I 
thought  of  them,  seemed  to  disturb  and  impair  the  sancti- 
ty of  my  pleasure.  I  contented  myself  with  thinking  over 
my  complacent  feelings,  and  breathing  forth  solitary  grat- 
ulations  and  thanksgivings,  which  I  did  in  many  a  sweet 
and  many  a  wild  place,  during  my  late  tour." 

The  friendship  of  which  this  act  of  delicate  generosity 
was  the  beginning  was  maintained  till  Sir  George  Beau- 
mont's death  in  1827,  and  formed  for  many  years  Words- 
worth's closest  link  with  the  world  of  art  and  culture.  Sir 
George  was  himself  a  painter  as  well  as  a  connoisseur,  and 
his  landscapes  are  not  without  indications  of  the  strong 
feeling  for  nature  which  he  undoubtedly  possessed. 
Wordsworth,  who  had  seen  very  few  pictures,  but  was  a 
penetrating  critic  of  those  which  he  knew,  discerned  this 
vein  of  true  feeling  in  his  friend's  work,  and  has  idealized 
a  small  landscape  which  Sir  George  had  given  him,  in  a 
sonnet  which  reproduces  the  sense  of  happy  pause  and 
voluntary  fixation  with  which  the  mind  throws  itself  into 
some  scene  where  art  has  given 

"  To  one  brief  moment  caught  from  fleeting  time 
The  appropriate  calm  of  blest  eternity." 

There  was  another  pursuit  in  which  Sir  George  Beau- 
mont was  much  interested,  and  in  which  painter  and  poet 


Ti.]  SIR  GEORGE  BEAUMONT.  67 

were  well  fitted  to  unite.  The  landscape-gardener,  as 
Wordsworth  says,  should  "  work  in  the  spirit  of  Nature, 
with  an  invisible  hand  of  art."  And  he  shows  how  any 
real  success  can  only  be  achieved  when  the  designer  is 
willing  to  incorporate  himself  with  the  scenery  around 
him ;  to  postpone  to  its  indications  the  promptings  of  his 
own  pride  or  caprice ;  to  interpret  Nature  to  herself  by 
completing  touches ;  to  correct  her  with  deference,  and,  as 
it  were,  to  caress  her  without  importunity.  And  rising  to 
that  aspect  of  the  question  which  connects  it  with  human 
society,  he  is  strenuous  in  condemnation  of  that  taste,  not 
so  much  for  solitude  as  for  isolation,  which  can  tolerate 
no  neighbourhood,  and  finds  its  only  enjoyment  in  the 
sense  of  monopoly. 

"  Laying  out  grounds,  as  it  is  called,  may  be  considered  as  a  liberal 
art,  in  some  sort  like  poetry  and  painting ;  its  object  ought  to  be  to 
move  the  affections  under  the  control  of  good-sense ;  and  surely  the 
affections  of  those  who  have  the  deepest  perception  of  the  beauty  of 
Nature — who  have  the  most  valuable  feelings,  that  is,  the  most  per- 
manent, the  most  independent,  the  most  ennobling,  connected  with 
Nature  and  human  life.  No  liberal  art  aims  merely  at  the  gratifica- 
tion of  an  individual  or  a  class ;  the  painter  or  poet  is  degraded  in 
proportion  as  he  does  so.  The  true  servants  of  the  arts  pay  hom- 
age to  the  human-kind  as  impersonated  in  unwarped  and  enhghtened 
minds.  If  this  be  so  when  we  are  merely  putting  together  words 
or  colours,  how  much  more  ought  the  feeling  to  prevail  when  we  are 
in  the  midst  of  the  realities  of  things ;  of  the  beauty  and  harmony, 
of  the  joy  and  happiness,  of  loving  creatures ;  of  men  and  children, 
of  birds  and  beasts,  of  hills  and  streams,  and  trees  and  flowers ;  with 
the  changes  of  night  and  day,  evening  and  morning,  summer  and 
winter ;  and  all  their  unwearied  actions  and  energies,  as  benign  in 
the  spirit  that  animates  them  as  they  are  beautiful  and  grand  in 
that  form  of  clothing  which  is  given  to  them  for  the  delight  of  our 
senses !  What,  then,  shall  we  say  of  many  great  mansions,  with 
their  unquaUfied  expulsion  of  human  creatures  from  their  neigh- 
4 


68  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

bourhood,  happy  or  not ;  houses  which  do  what  is  fabled  of  the 
upas-tree — breathe  out  death  and  desolation !  For  my  part,  strip  my 
neighbourhood  of  human  beings,  and  I  should  think  it  one  of  the 
greatest  privations  I  could  undergo.  You  have  all  the  poverty  of 
solitude,  nothing  of  its  elevation." 

This  passage  is  from  a  letter  of  Wordsworth's  to  Sir 
George  Beaumont,  who  was  engaged  at  the  time  in  re- 
building and  laying  out  Coleorton.  The  poet  himself 
planned  and  superintended  some  of  these  improvements, 
and  wrote,  for  various  points  of  interest  in  the  grounds, 
inscriptions  which  form  dignified  examples  of  that  kind 
of  composition. 

Nor  was  Sir  George  Beaumont  the  only  friend  whom 
the  poet's  taste  assisted  in  the  choice  of  a  site  or  the  dis- 
position of  pleasure-grounds.  More  than  one  seat  in  the 
Lake  country  —  among  them  one  home  of  pre-eminent 
beauty — have  owed  to  Wordsworth  no  small  part  of  their 
ordered  charm.  In  this  way,  too,  the  poet  is  with  us  still : 
his  presence  has  a  strange  reality  as  we  look  on  some 
majestic  prospect  of  interwinding  lake  and  mountain 
which  his  design  has  made  more  beautifully  visible  to  the 
children's  children  of  those  he  loved;  as  we  stand,  per- 
haps, in  some  shadowed  garden-ground  where  his  will  has 
had  its  way — has  framed  Helvellyn's  far-ofE  summit  in  an 
arch  of  tossing  green,  and  embayed  in  towering  forest- 
trees  the  long  lawns  of  a  silent  valley — fit  haunt  for  lofty 
aspiration  and  for  brooding  calm. 

But  of  all  woodland  ways  which  Wordsworth's  skill 
designed  or  his  feet  frequented,  not  one  was  dearer  to  him 
(if  I  may  pass  thus  by  a  gentle  transition  to  another  of 
the  strong  affections  of  his  life)  than  a  narrow  path 
through  a  firwood  near  his  cottage,  which  "  was  known 
to  the  poet's  household  by  the  name  of  John's  Grove." 


VI.]  THE  WORDSWORTH  BROTHERS.  69 

For  in  the  year  1800  his  brother,  John  Wordsworth,  a 
few  years  younger  than  himself,  and  captain  of  an  East 
Indiaman,  had  spent  eight  months  in  the  poet's  cottage  at 
Grasmere.  The  two  brothers  had  seen  little  of  each  other 
since  childhood,  and  the  poet  had  now  the  delight  of  dis- 
covering in  the  sailor  a  character  congenial  to  his  own,  and 
an  appreciation  of  poetry  —  and  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads 
especially — which  was  intense  and  delicate  in  an  unusual 
degree.  In  both  brothers,  too,  there  was  the  same  love 
of  nature ;  and  after  John's  departure,  the  poet  pleased 
himself  with  imasiinino^  the  visions  of  Grasmere  which 
beguiled  the  watches  of  many  a  night  at  sea,  or  with  trac- 
ing the  pathway  which  the  sailor's  instinct  had  planned 
and  trodden  amid  trees  so  thickly  planted  as  to  baffle  a 
less  practised  skill.  John  Wordsworth,  on  the  other  hand, 
looked  forward  to  Grasmere  as  the  final  goal  of  his  wan- 
derings, and  intended  to  use  his  own  savings  to  set  the 
poet  free  from  worldly  cares. 

Two  more  voyages  the  sailor  made  with  such  hopes  as 
these,  and  amid  a  frequent  interchange  of  books  and 
letters  with  his  brother  at  home.  Then,  in  February, 
1805,  he  set  sail  from  Portsmouth,  in  command  of  the 
"Abergavenny"  East  Indiaman,  bound  for  India  and 
China.  Through  the  incompetence  of  the  pilot  who  was 
taking  her  out  of  the  Channel,  the  ship  struck  on  the 
Shambles  off  the  Bill  of  Portland,  on  February  5,  1805. 
"  She  struck,"  says  Wordsworth,  "  at  5  p.m.  Guns  were 
fired  immediately,  and  were  continued  to  be  fired.  She 
•was  gotten  off  the  rock  at  half-past  seven,  but  had  taken 
in  so  much  water,  in  spite  of  constant  pumping,  as  to  be 
water-logged.  They  had,  however,  hope  that  she  might 
still  be  run  upon  Weymouth  sands,  and  with  this  view 
continued  pumping  and  baling  till  eleven,  when  she  went 


10  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

down.  ...  A  few  minutes  before  the  ship  went  down  my 
brother  was  seen  talking  to  the  first  mate  with  apparent 
cheerfulness ;  and  he  was  standing  on  the  hen-coop,  which 
is  the  point  from  which  he  could  overlook  the  whole  ship, 
the  moment  she  went  down — dying,  as  he  had  lived,  in  the 
Tery  place  and  point  where  his  duty  stationed  him." 

"  For  myself,''  he  continues  elsewhere,  "  I  feel  that  there 
is  something  cut  out  of  my  life  which  cannot  be  restored. 
I  never  thought  of  him  but  with  hope  and  delight.  We 
looked  forward  to  the  time,  not  distant,  as  we  thought, 
when  he  would  settle  near  us — when  the  task  of  his  life 
would  be  over,  and  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  but  reap 
his  reward.  By  that  time  I  hoped  also  that  the  chief  part 
of  my  labours  would  be  executed,  and  that  I  should  be 
able  to  show  him  that  he  had  not  placed  a  false  confidence 
in  me.  I  never  wrote  a  line  without  a  thought  of  giving 
him  pleasure ;  my  writings,  printed  and  manuscript,  were 
his  delight,  and  one  of  the  chief  solaces  of  his  long  voy- 
ages. But  let  me  stop.  I  will  not  be  cast  down ;  were 
it  only  for  his  sake,  I  will  not  be  dejected.  I  have  much 
yet  to  do,  and  pray  God  to  give  me  strength  and  power ; 
his  part  of  the  agreement  between  us  is  brought  to  an  end, 
mine  continues ;  and  I  hope,  when  I  shall  be  able  to  think 
of  him  with  a  calmer  mind,  that  the  remembrance  of  him 
dead  will  even  animate  me  more  than  the  joy  which  I  had 
in  him  living." 

In  these  and  the  following  reflections  there  is  nothing  oi: 
novelty;  yet  there  is  an  interest  in  the  spectacle  of  this 
strong  and  simple  mind  confronted  with  the  universal 
problems,  and  taking  refuge  in  the  thoughts  which  have 
satisfied,  or  scarcely  satisfied,  so  many  generations  of 
mourning  men. 

"  A  thousand  times  have  I  asked  myself,  as  your  tender 


VI.]  DEATH  OF  JOHN  WORDSWORTH.  11 

sympathy  led  me  to  do,  *  Why  was  he  taken  away?'  and  I 
have  answered  the  question  as  you  have  done.  In  fact, 
there  is  no  other  answer  which  can  satisfy,  and  lay  the 
raind  at  rest.  Why  have  we  a  choice,  and  a  will,  and  a 
notion  of  justice  and  injustice,  enabling  us  to  be  moral 
agents  ?  Why  have  we  sympathies  that  mako  the  best  of 
us  so  afraid  of  inflicting  pain  and  sorrow,  which  yet  we  see 
dealt  about  so  lavishly  by  the  Supreme  Governor?  Why 
should  our  notions  of  right  towards  each  other,  and  to  all 
sentient  beings  within  our  influence,  differ  so  widely  from 
what  appears  to  be  his  notion  and  rule,  if  everything  toere 
to  end  here  ?  Would  it  not  be  blasphemy  to  say  that,  upon 
the  supposition  of  the  thinking  principle  being  destroyed 
by  death,  however  inferior  we  may  be  to  the  great  Cause 
and  Ruler  of  things,  we  have  more  of  love  in  our  nature 
than  he  has?  The  thought  is  monstrous;  and  yet  how  to 
get  rid  of  it,  except  upon  the  supposition  of  another  and  a 
better  world,  I  do  not  see.'*' 

From  this  calamity,  as  from  all  the  lessons  of  life,  Words- 
worth drew  all  the  benefit  which  it  was  empowered  to 
bring.  "A  deep  distress  hath  humanized  my  soul " — what 
lover  of  poetry  does  not  know  the  pathetic  lines  in  which 
he  bears  witness  to  the  teaching  of  sorrow  ?  Other  griefs, 
too,  he  had — the  loss  of  two  children  in  1813  ;  his  sister's 
chronic  illness,  beginning  in  1832  ;  his  daughter's  death  in 
1847  All  these  he  felt  to  the  full;  and  yet,  until  his 
daughter's  death,  which  was  more  than  his  failing  energies 
could  bear,  these  bereavements  were  but  the  thinly-scatter- 
ed clouds  "  in  a  great  sea  of  blue  " — seasons  of  mourning 
here  and  there  among  years  which  never  lost  their  hold  on 
peace ;  which  knew  no  shame  and  no  remorse,  no  desola- 
tion and  no  fear ;  whose  days  were  never  long  with  weari- 
ness, nor  their  nights  broken  at  the  touch  of  woe.    Even 


72  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

when  we  speak  of  his  tribulations,  it  is  his  happiness  which 
rises  in  our  minds. 

And  inasmuch  as  this  felicity  is  the  great  fact  of  Words- 
worth's life — since  his  history  is  for  the  most  part  but  the 
history  of  a  halcyon  calm — we  find  ourselves  forced  upon  the 
question  whether  such  a  life  is  to  be  held  desirable  or  no. 
Happiness  with  honor  was  the  ideal  of  Solon ;  is  it  also 
ours  ?  To  the  modern  spirit — to  the  Christian,  in  whose 
ears  counsels  of  perfection  have  left  "  a  presence  that  is  not 
to  be  put  by,"  this  question,  at  which  a  Greek  would  have 
smiled,  is  of  no  such  easy  solution. 

To  us,  perhaps,  in  computing  the  fortune  of  any  one 
whom  we  hold  dear,  it  may  seem  more  needful  to  inquire 
not  whether  he  has  had  enough  of  joy,  but  whether  he  has 
had  enough  of  sorrow ;  whether  the  blows  of  circumstance 
have  wholly  .haped  his  character  from  the  rock ;  whether 
his  soul  has  taken  lustre  and  purity  in  the  refiner's  fire. 
Nor  is  it  only  (as  some  might  say)  for  violent  and  faulty 
natures  that  sorrow  is  the  best.  It  is  true  that  by  sorrow 
only  can  the  headstrong  and  presumptuous  spirit  be  shamed 
into  gentleness  and  solemnized  into  humility.  But  sorrow 
is  used  also  by  the  Power  above  us  in  cases  where  we  men 
would  have  shrunk  in  horror  from  so  rough  a  touch. 
Natures  that  were  already  of  a  heroic  unselfishness,  of  a 
childlike  purity^  have  been  raised  ere  now  by  anguish  upon 
anguish,  woe  after  woe,  to  a  height  of  holiness  which  we 
may  believe  that  they  could  have  reached  by  no  other  road. 
Why  should  it  not  be  so  ?  since  there  is  no  limit  to  the 
soul's  possible  elevation,  why  should  her  purifying  trials 
have  any  assignable  end?  She  is  of  a  metal  which  can 
grow  for  ever  brighter  in  the  fiercening  flame.  And  if, 
then,  we  would  still  pronounce  the  true  Beatitudes  not  on 
the  rejoicing,  the  satisfied,  the  highly-honoured,  but  after 


Ti.]  DEATH  OF  JOHN  WORDSWORTH.  73 

an  ancient  and  sterner  pattern,  what  account  are  we  to  give 
of  Wordsworth's  long  years  of  blissful  calm  ? 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  say  that  his  happiness  was  as 
wholly  free  from  vulgar  or  transitory  elements  as  a  man's 
can  be.  It  lay  in  a  life  which  most  men  would  have  found 
austere  and  blank  indeed ;  a  life  from  which  not  CrcEsus 
only  but  Solon  would  have  turned  in  scorn ;  a  life  of  pov- 
erty and  retirement,  of  long  apparent  failure,  and  honour 
that  came  tardily  at  the  close;  it  was  a  happiness  nour- 
ished on  no  sacrifice  of  other  men,  on  no  eager  appropria- 
tion of  the  goods  of  earth,  but  springing  from  a  single  eye 
and  a  loving  spirit,  and  wrought  from  those  primary  emo- 
tions which  are  the  innocent  birthright  of  all.  /And  if  it 
be  answered  that,  however  truly  philosophic,  howeveFsacred- 
ly  pure,  his  happiness  may  have  been,  yet  its  wisdom  and 
its  holiness  were  without  an  effort,  and  that  it  is  effort 
which  makes  the  philosopher  and  the  saint :  then  we  must 
use  in  answer  his  own  Platonic  scheme  of  things,  to  express 
a  thought  which  we  can  but  dimly  apprehend;  and  we 
must  say  that,  though  progress  be  inevitably  linked  in  our 
minds  with  struggle,  yet  neither  do  we  conceive  of  strug- 
gle as  without  a  pause ;  there  must  be  prospect-places  in 
the  long  ascent  of  souls ;  and  the  whole  of  this  earthly  life 
— this  one  existence,  standing  we  know  not  where  among 
the  myriad  that  have  been  for  us  or  shall'be — may  not  be 
too  much  to  occupy  with  one  of  those  outlooks  of  vision 
and  of  prophecy,  when 

"  In  a  season  of  calm  weather, 
Though  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither ; 
Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither, 
And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore, 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore." 


CHAPTER  VII. 

AND    PATRIOTIC    POEMS. 

The  year  1805,  which  bereft  Wordsworth  of  a  beloved 
brother,  brought  with  it  also  another  death,  which  was  felt 
by  the  whole  English  nation  like  a  private  calamity.  The 
emotion  which  Wordsworth  felt  at  the  news  of  Trafalgar 
— the  way  in  which  he  managed  to  intertwine  the  memories 
of  Nelson  and  of  his  own  brother  in  his  heart — may  re- 
mind us  fitly  at  this  point  of  our  story  of  the  distress  and 
perplexity  of  nations  which  for  so  many  years  surrounded 
the  quiet  Grasmere  home,  and  of  the  strong  responsive 
emotion  with  which  the  poet  met  each  shock  of  European 
fates. 

When  England  first  took  up  arms  against  the  French 
revolution,  Wordsworth's  feeling,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
been  one  of  unmixed  sorrow  and  shame.  Bloody  and 
terrible  as  the  revolution  had  become,  it  was  still  in  some 
sort  representative  of  human  freedom ;  at  any  rate,  it 
might  still  seem  to  contain  possibilities  of  progress  such 
as  the  retrograde  despotisms  with  which  England  allied 
herself  could  never  know.  But  the  conditions  of  the  con- 
test changed  before  long.  France  had  not  the  wisdom, 
the  courage,  the  constancy  to  play  to  the  end  the  part  for 
which  she  had  seemed  chosen  among  the  nations.  It  was 
her  conduct  towards  Switzerland  which  decisively  altered 


OHAP.vn.]   "HAPPY  WARRIOR,"  AND  PATRIOTIC  POEMS.   75 

Wordsworth's  view.  He  saw  her  valiant  spirit  of  self- 
defence  corrupted  into  lust  of  glory  ;  her  eagerness  for  the 
abolition  of  unjust  privilege  turned  into  a  contentment 
with  equality  of  degradation  under  a  despot's  heel.  "  One 
man,  of  men  the  meanest  too  " — for  such  the  First  Consul 
must  needs  appear  to  the  moralist's  eye — was 

"  Raised  up  to  sway  the  world — to  do,  undo ; 
With  mighty  nations  for  his  underlings." 

And  history  herself  seemed  vulgarized  by  the  repetition  of 
her  ancient  tales  of  war  and  overthrow  on  a  scale  of  such 
apparent  magnitude,  but  with  no  glamour  of  distance  to 
hide  the  baseness  of  the  agencies  by  which  the  destinies 
of  Europe  were  shaped  anew.  This  was  an  occasion  that 
tried  the  hearts  of  men ;  it  was  not  easy  to  remain  through 
all  those  years  at  once  undazzled  and  untempted,  and  never 
in  the  blackest  hour  to  despair  of  human  virtue. 

In  his  tract  on  The  Convention  of  CintrUy  1808,  Words- 
worth has  given  the  fullest  expression  to  this  undaunted 
temper : 

"  Oppression,  its  own  blind  and  predestined  enemy,  has  poured  this 
of  blessedness  upon  Spain — that  the  enormity  of  the  outrages  of 
which  she  has  been  the  victim  has  created  an  object  of  love  and  of 
hatred,  of  apprehensions  and  of  wishes,  adequate  (if  that  be  possible) 
to  the  utmost  demands  of  the  human  spirit.  The  heart  that  serves 
in  this  cause,  if  it  languish,  must  languish  from  its  own  constitutional 
weakness,  and  not  through  want  of  nourishment  from  without.  But 
it  is  a  belief  propagated  in  books,  and  which  passes  currently  among 
talking  men  as  part  of  their  familiar  wisdom,  that  the  hearts  of  the 
many  are  constitutionally  weak,  that  they  do  languish,  and  are  slow 
to  answer  to  the  requisitions  of  things.  I  entreat  those  who  are  in 
this  delusion  to  look  behind  them  and  about  them  for  the  evidence 
of  experience.  Now  this,  rightly  understood,  not  only  gives  no  sup- 
port to  any  such  belief,  but  proves  that  the  truth  is  in  direct  opposi- 
F      4*  19 


76  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

tion  to  it.  The  history  of  all  ages — tumults  after  tumults,  wars  for- 
eign or  civil,  with  short  or  with  no  breathing-places  from  generation 
to  generation ;  the  senseless  weaving  and  interweaving  of  factions, 
vanishing,  and  reviving,  and  piercing  each  other  like  the  Northern 
Lights ;  public  commotions,  and  those  in  the  breast  of  the  individual ; 
the  long  calenture  to  which  the  Lover  is  subject ;  the  blast,  like  the 
blast  of  the  desert,  which  sweeps  perennially  through  a  frightful  sol- 
itude of  its  own  making  in  the  mind  of  the  Gamester;  the  slowly 
quickening,  but  ever  quickening,  descent  of  appetite  down  which  the 
Miser  is  propelled ;  the  agony  and  cleaving  oppression  of  grief ;  the 
ghost-like  hauntings  of  shame ;  the  incubus  of  revenge ;  the  life-dis- 
temper of  ambition  .  .  .  these  demonstrate  incontestably  that  the 
passions  of  men  (I  mean  the  soul  of  sensibiUty  in  the  heart  of  man), 
in  all  quarrels,  in  all  contests,  in  all  quests,  in  all  delights,  in  all 
employments  which  are  either  sought  by  men  or  thrust  upon  them, 
do  immeasurably  transcend  their  objects.  The  true  sorrow  of  human- 
ity consists  in  this — not  that  the  mind  of  man  fails,  but  that  the 
cause  and  demands  of  action  and  of  hfe  so  rarely  correspond  with  the 
dignity  and  intensity  of  human  desires ;  and  hence,  that  which  is  slow 
to  languish  is  too  easily  turned  aside  and  abused.  But,  with  the  re- 
membrance of  what  has  been  done,  and  in  the  face  of  the  intermi- 
nable evils  which  are  threatened,  a  Spaniard  can  never  have  cause  to 
complain  of  this  while  a  follower  of  the  tyrant  remains  in  arms  upon 
the  Peninsula." 

It  was  passages  such  as  this,  perhaps,  which  led  Can- 
ning to  declare  that  Wordsworth's  pamphlet  was  the  finest 
piece  of  political  eloquence  which  had  appeared  since 
Burke.  And  yet  if  we  compare  it  with  Burke,  or  with 
the  great  Greek  exemplar  of  all  those  who  would  give 
speech  the  cogency  of  act — we  see  at  once  the  causes  of 
its  practical  failure.  In  Demosthenes  the  thoughts  and 
principles  are  often  as  lofty  as  any  patriot  can  express; 
but  their  loftiness,  in  his  speech,  as  in  the  very  truth  of 
things,  seemed  but  to  add  to  their  immediate  reality. 
They  were  beaten  and  inwoven  into  the  facts  of  the  hour; 
action  seemed  to  turn  on  them  as  on  its  only  possible 


Til.]      "HAPPY  WARRIOR,"  AND  PATRIOTIC  POEMS.         77 

pivot ;  it  was  as  thougli  Virtue  and  Freedom  hung  armed 
in  heaven  above  the  assembly,  and  in  the  visible  likeness 
of  immortal  ancestors  beckoned  upon  an  urgent  way. 
Wordsworth's  mood  of  mind,  on  the  other  hand,  as  he  has 
depicted  it  in  two  sonnets  written  at  the  same  time  as  his 
tract,  explains  why  it  was  that  that  appeal  was  rather  a 
solemn  protest  than  an  effective  exhortation.  In  the  first 
sonnet  he  describes  the  surroundings  of  his  task — the  dark 
wood  and  rocky  cave,  "the  hollow  vale  which  foaming 
torrents  fill  with  omnipresent  murmur :" 

"  Here  mighty  Nature !  in  this  school  sublime 
I  weigh  the  hopes  and  fears  of  suffering  Spain ; 
For  her  consult  the  auguries  of  time, 
And  through  the  human  heart  explore  my  way, 
And  look  and  listen,  gathering  whence  I  may 
Triumph,  and  thoughts  no  bondage  can  restrain." 

And  then  he  proceeds  to  conjecture  what  effect  his  tract 
will  produce : 

"  I  dropped  my  pen,  and  listened  to  the  whid, 

That  sang  of  trees  uptorn  and  vessels  tost ; 

A  midnight  harmony,  and  wholly  lost 
To  the  general  sense  of  men,  by  chains  confined 
Of  business,  care,  or  pleasure, — or  resigned 

To  timely  sleep.     Thought  I,  the  impassioned  strain 

Which  without  aid  of  numbers  I  sustain 
Like  acceptation  from  the  world  will  find." 

This  deliberate  and  lonely  emotion  was  fitter  to  inspire 
grave  poetry  than  a  pamphlet  appealing  to  an  immediate 
crisis.  And  the  sonnets  dedicated  To  Liberty  (1802-16) 
are  the  outcome  of  many  moods  like  these. 

It  is  little  to  say  of  these  sonnets  that  they  are  the  most 
permanent  record  in  our  literature  of  the  Napoleonic  war. 


18  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

For  that  distinction  they  have  few  competitors.  Two 
magnificent  songs  of  Campbell's,  an  ode  of  Coleridge's,  a 
few  spirited  stanzas  of  Byron's — strangely  enough  there 
is  little  besides  these  that  lives  in  the  national  memory, 
till  we  come  to  the  ode  which  summed  up  the  long  con- 
test a  generation  later,  when  its  great  captain  passed  away. 
But  these  Sonnets  to  Liberty  are  worthy  of  comparison 
with  the  noblest  passages  of  patriotic  verse  or  prose  which 
all  our  history  has  inspired  —  the  passages  where  Shak- 
speare  brings  his  rays  to  focus  on  "  this  earth,  this  realm, 
this  England" — or  where  the  dread  of  national  dishon- 
our  has  kindled  Chatham  to  an  iron  glow  —  or  where ' 
Milton  rises  from  the  polemic  into  the  prophet,  and 
Burke  from  the  partisan  into  the  philosopher.  The  ar' 
moury  of  Wordsworth,  indeed,  was  not  forged  with  the 
same  fire  as  that  of  these  "  invincible  knights  of  old." 
He  had  not  swayed  senates,  nor  directed  policies,  nor 
gathered  into  one  ardent  bosom  all  the  spirit  of  a  heroic 
age.  But  he  had  deeply  felt  what  it  is  that  makes  the 
greatness  of  nations ;  in  that  extremity  no  man  was  more 
staunch  than  he ;  no  man  more  unwaveringly  disdained 
unrighteous  empire,  or  kept  the  might  of  moral  forces 
more  steadfastly  in  view.  Not  Stein  could  place  a  man- 
lier reliance  on  "  a  few  strong  instincts  and  a  few  plain 
rules ;"  not  Fichte  could  invoke  more  convincingly  the 
*' great  allies"  which  work  with  "Man's  unconquerable 
mind." 

Here  and  there,  indeed,  throughout  these  sonnets  are 
scattered  strokes  of  high  poetic  admiration  or  scorn  which 
could  hardly  be  overmatched  in  -^schylus.  Such  is  the 
indignant  correction — 

"  Call  not  the  royal  Swede  unfortunate, 
Who  never  did  to  Fortune  bend  the  knee !" 


vil]      "  HAPPY  WARRIOR,"  AND  PATRIOTIC  POEMS.         79 

or  tlie  stern  toucli  which  closes  a  description  of  Flami- 
ninus's  proclamation  at  the  Isthmian  games,  according  lib- 
erty to  Greece — 

"  A  gift  of  that  which  is  not  to  be  given 
By  all  the  blended  powers  of  Earth  and  Heaven  !" 

Space  forbids  me  to  dwell  in  detail  on  these  noble 
poems — on  the  well-known  sonnets  to  Venice,  to  Milton, 
&c. ;  on  the  generous  tributes  to  the  heroes  of  the  con- 
test— Schill,  Hoffer,  Toussaint,  Palafox  ;  or  on  the  series 
which  contrast  the  instinctive  greatness  of  the  Spanish 
people  at  bay  with  Napoleon's  lying  promises  and  inhu- 
man pride.  But  if  Napoleon's  career  afforded  to  Words- 
worth a  poetic  example,  impressive  as  that  of  Xerxes  to 
the  Greeks,  of  lawless  and  intoxicated  power,  there  was 
need  of  some  contrasted  figure  more  notable  than  Hoffer 
or  Palafox  from  which  to  draw  the  lessons  which  great 
contests  can  teach  of  unselfish  valour.  Was  there  then 
any  man,  by  land  or  sea,  who  might  serve  as  the  poet's 
type  of  the  ideal  hero  ?  To  an  Englishman,  at  least,  this 
question  carries  its  own  reply.  For  by  a  singular  destiny 
England,  with  a  thousand  years  of  noble  history  behind 
her,  has  chosen  for  her  best-beloved,  for  her  national  hero, 
not  an  Arminius  from  the  age  of  legend,  not  a  Henri 
Quatre  from  the  age  of  chivalry,  but  a  man  whom  men 
still  living  have  seen  and  known.  For,  indeed,  England 
and  all  the  world  as  to  this  man  were  of  one  accord ;  and 
when  in  victory,  on  his  ship  Victory,  Nelson  passed  away, 
the  thrill  which  shook  mankind  was  of  a  nature  such  as 
perhaps  was  never  felt  at  any  other  death — so  unanimous 
was  the  feeling  of  friends  and  foes  that  earth  had  lost  her 
crowning  example  of  impassioned  self-devotedness  and  of 
heroic  honour. 


80  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

And  yet  it  might  have  seemed  that  between  Nelson's 
nature  and  Wordsworth's  there  was  little  in  common. 
The  obvious  limitations  of  the  great  Admiral's  culture  and 
character  were  likely  to  be  strongly  felt  by  the  philosophic 
poet.  And  a  serious  crime,  of  which  Nelson  was  com- 
monly, though,  as  now  appears,  erroneously,^  supposed  to 
be  guilty,  was  sure  to  be  judged  by  Wordsworth  with 
great  severity. 

Wordsworth  was,  in  fact,  hampered  by  some  such  feel- 
ings of  disapproval.  He  even  tells  us,  with  that  naive 
afEectionateness  which  often  makes  us  smile,  that  he  has 
had  recourse  to  the  character  of  his  own  brother  John 
for  the  qualities  in  which  the  great  Admiral  appeared  to 
him  to  have  been  deficient.  But  on  these  hesitations  it 
would  be  unjust  to  dwell.  I  mention  them  only  to  bring 
out  the  fact  that  between  these  two  men,  so  different  in 
outward  fates — between  "the  adored,  the  incomparable 
Nelson"  and  the  homely  poet,  "  retired  as  noontide  dew" 
— there  was  a  moral  likeness  so  profound  that  the  ideal 
of  the  recluse  was  realized  in  the  public  life  of  the  hero, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  hero  himself  is  only  seen  as 
completely  heroic  when  his  impetuous  life  stands  out  for 
us  from  the  solemn  background  of  the  poet's  calm.  And 
surely  these  two  natures  taken  together  make  the  perfect 
Englishman.  Nor  is  there  any  portrait  fitter  than  that 
of  The  Happy  Warnior  to  go  forth  to  all  lands  as  repre- 
senting the  English  character  at  its  height — a  figure  not 
ill-matching  with  "  Plutarch's  men." 

For  indeed  this  short  poem  is  in  itself  a  manual  of 
greatness;  there  is  a  Roman  majesty  in  its  simple  and 

*  The  researches  of  Sir  Nicholas  Nicolas  {Letters  and  Despatches  of 
Lord  Nelson^  vol.  vii.,  Appendix)  have  placed  Lord  Nelson's  connex* 
ion  with  Lady  Hamilton  in  an  unexpected  light. 


vn.]      "HAPPY  WAKRIOR,"  AND  PATRIOTIC  POEMS.         81 

Meiglity  speech.  And  what  eulogy  was  ever  nobler  than 
that  passage  where,  without  definite  allusion  or  quoted 
name,  the  poet  depicts,  as  it  were,  the  very  summit  of 
glory  in  the  well-remembered  aspect  of  the  Admiral  in 
his  last  and  greatest  hour  ? 

"  Whose  powers  shed  round  him,  in  the  common  strife, 
Or  mild  concerns  of  ordinary  life, 
A  constant  influence,  a  peculiar  grace  ; 
But  who,  if  he  be  called  upon  to  face 
Some  awful  moment  to  which  Heaven  has  joined 
Great  issues,  good  or  bad  for  human  kind, 
Is  hjoppy  as  a  Lover,  and  attired 
With  sudden  brightness,  like  a  Man  inspired.'''' 

Or  again,  where  the  hidden  thought  of  Nelson's  womanly 
tenderness,  of  his  constant  craving  for  the  green  earth  and 
home  affections  in  the  midst  of  storm  and  war,  melts  the 
stern  verses  into  a  sudden  change  of  tone : 

"  He  who,  though  thus  endued  as  with  a  sense 
And  faculty  for  storm  and  turbulence, 
Is  yet  a  Soid  whose  master-bias  leans 
To  home-felt  pleasures  and  to  gentle  scenes  ; 
Sweet  images !  which,  wheresoe'er  he  be. 
Are  at  his  heart ;  and  such  fidelity 
It  is  his  darling  passion  to  approve  ;— 
More  brave  for  this,  that  he  hath  much  to  love." 

Compare  with  this  the  end  of  the  Song  at  Brougham 
Castle^  where,  at  the  words  "  alas !  the  fervent  harper  did 
not  know — "  the  strain  changes  from  the  very  spirit  of 
chivalry  to  the  gentleness  of  nature's  calm.  Nothing 
can  be  more  characteristic  of  Wordsworth  than  contrasts 
like  this.  They  teacb  us  to  remember  that  his  accustomed 
mildness  is  the  fruit  of  no  indolent  or  sentimental  peace ; 
and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  when  his  counsels  are  aterQest, 


82  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

and  "  his  voice  is  still  for  war,"  this  is  no  voice  of  hard- 
ness or  of  vainglory,  but  the  reluctant  resolution  of  a  heart 
which  fain  would  yield  itself  to  other  energies,  and  have 
no  message  but  of  love. 

There  is  one  more  point  in  which  the  character  of  Nel- 
son has  fallen  in  with  one  of  the  lessons  which  Words- 
worth is  never  tired  of  enforcing,  the  lesson  that  virtue 
grows  by  the  strenuousness  of  its  exercise,  that  it  gains 
strength  as  it  wrestles  with  pain  and  difficulty,  and  con- 
verts the  shocks  of  circumstance  into  an  energy  of  its 
proper  glow.     The  Happy  Warrior  is  one, 

"Who,  doomed  to  go  in  company  with  Pain, 
And  Fear,  and  Bloodshed,  miserable  train  ! 
Turns  his  necessity  to  glorious  gain  ; 
In  face  of  these  doth  exercise  a  power 
Which  is  our  human  nature's  highest  dower ; 
Controls  them  and  subdues,  transmutes,  bereaves 
Of  their  bad  influence,  and  their  good  receives  ; 
By  objects  which  might  force  the  soul  to  abate 
Her  feehng,  rendered  more  compassionate ;" 

and  so  further,  in  words  which  recall  the  womanly  ten- 
derness, the  almost  exaggerated  feeling  for  others'  pain, 
which  showed  itself  memorably  in  face  of  the  blazing 
Orient,  and  in  the  harbour  at  Teneriffe,  and  in  the  cock- 
pit at  Trafalgar. 

In  such  lessons  as  these — such  lessons  as  The  Happy 
Warrior  or  the  Patriotic  Sonnets  teach — there  is,  of  course, 
little  that  is  absolutely  novel.  We  were  already  aware 
that  the  ideal  hero  should  be  as  gentle  as  he  is  brave,  that 
he  should  act  always  from  the  highest  motives,  nor  greatly 
care  for  any  reward  save  the  consciousness  of  having  done 
his  duty.  We  were  aware  that  the  true  strength  of  a  na- 
tion is  moral,  and  not  material ;  that  dominion  which  rests 


Yii.]      "HAPPY  WARRIOR,"  AND  PATRIOTIC  POEMS         83 

on  mere  military  force  is  destined  quickly  to  decay;  tliat 
the  tyrant,  however  admired  and  prosperous,  is  in  reality 
despicable,  and  miserable,  and  alone ;  that  the  true  man 
should  face  death  itself  rather  than  parley  with  dishon- 
our. These  truths  are  admitted  in  all  ages  ;  yet  it  is  scarce- 
ly stretching  language  to  say  that  they  are  known  to  but 
few  men.  Or  at  least,  though  in  a  great  nation  there  be 
many  who  will  act  on  them  instinctively,  and  approve 
them  by  a  self-surrendering  faith,  there  are  few  who  can 
so  put  them  forth  in  speech  as  to  bring  them  home  with 
a  fresh  conviction  and  an  added  glow;  who  can  sum  up, 
like  ^schylus,  the  contrast  between  Hellenic  freedom  and 
barbarian  despotism  in  "  one  trump's  peal  that  set  all 
Greeks  aflame  ;"  can  thrill,  like  Virgil,  a  world-wide  em- 
pire with  the  recital  of  the  august  simplicities  of  early 
Rome. 

To  those  who  would  know  these  things  with  a  vital 
knowledge — a  conviction  which  would  remain  unshaken 
were  the  whole  world  in  arms  for  wrong — it  is  before  all 
things  necessary  to  strengthen  the  inner  monitions  by  the 
companionship  of  these  noble  souls.  And  if  a  poet,  by 
strong  concentration  of  thought,  by  striving  in  all  things 
along  the  upward  way,  can  leave  us  in  a  few  pages,  as  it 
were,  a  summary  of  patriotism,  a  manual  of  national  hon- 
our, he  surely  has  his  place  among  his  country's  benefac^ 
tors  not  only  by  that  kind  of  courtesy  which  the  nation 
extends  to  men  of  letters  of  whom  her  masses  take  little 
heed,  but  with  a  title  as  assured  as  any  warrior  or  states- 
man, and  with  no  less  direct  a  claim. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

CHILDREN. LIFE    AT    RYDAL    MOUNT. "  THE    EXCURSION.'* 

It  may  be  well  at  this  point  to  return  to  the  quiet 
chronicle  of  the  poet's  life  at  Grasmere;  where  his  cot- 
tage was  becoming  too  small  for  an  increasing  family. 
His  eldest  son,  John,  was  born  in  1803  ;  his  eldest  daugh- 
ter, Dorothy  or  Dora,  in  1804.  Then  came  Thomas,  born 
1806;  and  Catherine,  born  1808;  and  the  list  is  ended 
by  William,  born  1810,  and  now  (1880)  the  only  survivor. 
In  the  spring  of  1808  Wordsworth  left  Townend  for  Al- 
lan Bank — a  more  roomy  but  an  uncomfortable  house, 
at  the  north  end  of  Grasmere.  From  thence  he  removed 
for  a  time,  in  1811,  to  the  Parsonage  at  Grasmere. 

Wordsworth  was  the  most  affectionate  of  fathers,  and 
allusions  to  his  children  occur  frequently  in  his  poetry. 
Dora — who  was  the  delight  of  his  later  years — has  been 
described  at  length  in  The  Triad.  Shorter  and  simpler, 
but  more  completely  successful,  is  the  picture  of  Cathe- 
rine in  the  little  poem  which  begins  "  Loving  she  is,  and 
tractable,  though  wild,"  with  its  homely  simile  for  child« 
hood — its  own  existence  suflScient  to  fill  it  with  gladness : 

"  As  a  faggot  sparkles  on  the  hearth 
Not  less  if  unattended  and  alone 
Than  when  both  young  and  old  sit  gathered  round 
And  take  delight  in  its  activity." 


CHAP.  Till.]  CHILDREN.  86 

The  next  notice  of  this  beloved  child  is  in  the  sonnet, 
"  Surprised  by  joy,  impatient  as  the  wind,"  written  when 
she  had  already  been  removed  from  his  side.  She  died 
in  1812,  and  was  closely  followed  by  her  brother  Thomas. 
Wordsworth's  grief  for  these  children  was  profound,  vio- 
lent, and  lasting,  to  an  extent  which  those  who  imagine 
him  as  not  only  calm  but  passionless  might  have  some 
difficulty  in  believing.  "  Referring  once,"  says  his  friend 
Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere,  "  to  two  young  children  of  his  who 
had  died  about  forty  years  previously,  he  described  the 
details  of  their  illnesses  with  an  exactness  and  an  impetu- 
osity of  troubled  excitement  such  as  might  have  been 
expected  if  the  bereavement  had  taken  place  but  a  few 
weeks  before.  The  lapse  of  time  seemed  to  have  left  the 
sorrow  submerged  indeed,  but  still  in  all  its  first  freshness. 
Yet  I  afterwards  heard  that  at  the  time  of  the  illness,  at 
least  in  the  case  of  one  of  the  two  children,  it  was  im- 
possible to  rouse  his  attention  to  the  danger.  He  chanced 
to  be  then  under  the  immediate  spell  of  one  of  those  fits 
of  poetic  inspiration  which  descended  on  him  like  a  cloud. 
Till  the  cloud  had  drifted,  he  could  see  nothing  beyond." 

This  anecdote  illustrates  the  fact,  which  to  those  who 
knew  Wordsworth  well  wa,s  sufficiently  obvious,  that  the 
characteristic  calm  of  his  writings  was  the  result  of  no 
coldness  of  temperament,  but  of  a  deliberate  philosophy. 
The  pregnant  force  of  his  language  in  dealing  with  those 
dearest  to  him — his  wife,  his  sister,  his  brother — is  proof 
enough  of  this.  The  frequent  allusions  in  his  correspond- 
ence to  the  physical  exhaustion  brought  on  by  the  act 
of  poetical  composition  indicate  a  frame  which,  though 
made  robust  by  exercise  and  temperance,  was  by  nature 
excitable  rather  than  strong.  And  even  in  the  direction 
in  which  we  should  least  have  expected  it,  there  is  reason 


86  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

to  believe  that  there  were  capacities  of  feeling  in  him 
which  never  broke  from  his  control.  "  Had  I  been  a 
writer  of  love-poetry,"  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "it 
would  have  been  natural  to  me  to  write  it  with  a  degree 
of  warmth  which  could  hardly  have  been  approved  by 
my  principles,  and  which  might  have  been  undesirable 
for  the  reader." 

Wordsworth's  paternal  feelings,  at  any  rate,  were,  as 
has  been  said,  exceptionally  strong ;  and  the  impossibility 
of  remaining  in  a  house  filled  with  sorrowful  memories 
rendered  him  doubly  anxious  to  obtain  a  permanent  home. 
"The  house  which  I  have  for  some  time  occupied,"  he 
writes  to  Lord  Lonsdale,  in  January,  1813,  "  is  the  Parson- 
age of  Grasmere.  It  stands  close  by  the  churchyard,  and 
I  have  found  it  absolutely  necessary  that  we  should  quit  a 
place  which,  by  recalling  to  our  minds  at  every  moment 
the  losses  we  have  sustained  in  the  course  of  the  last  year, 
would  grievously  retard  our  progress  towards  that  tran- 
quillity which  it  is  our  duty  to  aim  at."  It  happened  that 
Rydal  Mount  became  vacant  at  this  moment,  and  in  the 
spring  of  1813  the  Wordsworths  migrated  to  this  their 
favourite  and  last  abode. 

Rydal  Mount  has  probably  been  oftener  described  than 
any  other  English  poet's  home  since  Shakspeare ;  and  few 
homes,  certainly,  have  been  moulded  into  such  close  ac- 
cordance with  their  inmates'  nature.  The  house,  which 
has  been  altered  since  Wordsworth's  day,  stands,  looking 
southward,  on  the  rocky  side  of  Nab  Scar,  above  Rydal 
Lake.  The  garden  was  described  by  Bishop  Wordsworth 
immediately  after  his  uncle's  death,  while  every  terrace- 
walk  and  flowering  alley  spoke  of  the  poet's  loving  care. 
He  tells  of  the  "  tall  ash-tree,  in  which  a  thrush  has  sung, 
for  hours  together,  during  many  years ;"  of  the  "  labuF» 


Till.]  LITE  AT  RYDAL  MOUNT.  87 

num  in  which  the  osier  cage  of  the  doves  was  hung ;"  of 
the  stone  steps  "  in  the  interstices  of  which  grow  the  yel- 
low  flowering   poppy,  and  the   wild  geranium   or  Poor 

Robin"— 

"Gay 

•With  his  red  stalks  upon  a  sunny  day." 

And  then  of  the  terraces — one  levelled  for  Miss  Fenwick's 
use,  and  welcome  to  himself  in  aged  years ;  and  one  ascend- 
ing, and  leading  to  the  "  far  terrace "  on  the  mountain's 
side,  where  the  poet  was  wont  to  murmur  his  verses  as  they 
came.  Within  the  house  were  disposed  his  simple  treas- 
ures: the  ancestral  almery,  on  which  the  names  of  un- 
known Wordsworths  may  be  deciphered  still ;  Sir  George 
Beaumont's  pictures  of  "  The  White  Doe  of  Rylstone  "  and 
"  The  Thorn,"  and  the  cuckoo  clock  which  brought  vernal 
thoughts  to  cheer  the  sleepless  bed  of  age,  and  which 
sounded  its  noonday  summons  when  his  spirit  fled. 

Wordsworth's  worldly  fortunes,  as  if  by  some  benignant 
guardianship  of  Providence,  were  at  all  times  proportioned 
to  his  successive  needs.  About  the  date  of  his  removal 
to  Rydal  (in  March,  1813)  he  was  appointed,  through  Lord 
Lonsdale's  interest,  to  the  distributorship  of  stamps  for 
the  county  of  Westmoreland,  to  which  ofiice  the  same 
post  for  Cumberland  was  afterwards  added.  He  held  this 
post  till  August,  1842,  when  he  resigned  it  without  a  retir- 
ing pension,  and  it  was  conferred  on  his  second  son.  He 
was  allowed  to  reside  at  Rydal,  which  was  counted  as  a 
suburb  of  Ambleside ;  and  as  the  duties  of  the  place  were 
light,  and  mainly  performed  by  a  most  competent  and  de- 
voted clerk,  there  was  no  drawback  to  the  advantage  of  an 
increase  of  income  which  released  him  from  anxiety  as  to 
the  future.  A  more  lucrative  oflSce — the  collectorship  of 
Whitehaven  —  was  subsequently  offered  to  him;   but  he 


88  WORDSWORTH.  [chap 

declined  it,  "nor  would  exchange  his  Sabine  valley  for 
riches  and  a  load  of  care." 

Though  Wordsworth's  life  at  Rydal  was  a  retired  one, 
it  was  not  that  of  a  recluse.  As  years  went  on  he  became 
more  and  more  recognized  as  a  centre  of  spiritual  strength 
and  illumination,  and  was  sought  not  only  by  those  who 
were  already  his  neighbours,  but  by  some  who  became  so 
mainly  for  his  sake.  Southey  at  Keswick  was  a  valued 
friend,  though  Wordsworth  did  not  greatly  esteem  him  as 
a  poet.  De  Quincey,  originally  attracted  to  the  district 
by  admiration  for  Wordsworth,  remained  there  for  many 
years,  and  poured  forth  a  criticism  strangely  compounded 
of  the  utterances  of  the  hero-worshipper  and  the  valet-de- 
chambre.  Professor  Wilson,  of  the  Nodes  Ambrosiance, 
never  showed,  perhaps,  to  so  much  advantage  as  when  he 
walked  by  the  side  of  the  master  whose  greatness  he  was 
one  of  the  first  to  detect.  Dr.  Arnold  of  Rugby  made  the 
neighbouring  home  at  Fox  How  a  focus  of  warm  affections 
and  of  intellectual  life.  And  Hartley  Coleridge,  whose 
fairy  childhood  had  inspired  one  of  Wordsworth's  happiest 
pieces,  continued  to  lead  among  the  dales  of  Westmoreland 
a  life  which  showed  how  much  of  genius  and  goodness  a 
single  weakness  can  nullify. 

Other  friends  there  were,  too,  less  known  to  fame,  but 
of  exceptional  powers  of  appreciation  and  sympathy.  The 
names  of  Mrs.  Fletcher  and  her  daughters.  Lady  Richard- 
son and  Mrs.  Davy,  should  not  be  omitted  in  any  record 
of  the  poet's  life  at  Rydal.  And  many  humbler  neigh- 
bours may  be  recognized  in  the  characters  of  the  Excursion 
and  other  poems.  The  Wanderer,  indeed,  is  a  picture  of 
Wordsworth  himself — "  an  idea,"  as  he  says,  "  of  what  I 
fancied  my  own  character  might  have  become  in  his  cir- 
cumstances."    But  the  Solitary  was  suggested  by  a  broken 


vm.]  "THE  EXCURSION."  69 

man  who  took  ref  age  in  Grasmere  from  tlie  world  in  which 
he  had  found  no  peace ;  and  the  characters  described  as 
lying  in  the  churchyard  among  the  mountains  are  almost 
all  of  them  portraits.  The  clergyman  and  his  family  de- 
scribed in  Book  VII.  were  among  the  poet's  principal  as- 
sociates in  the  vale  of  Grasmere.  "  There  was  much  talent 
in  the  family,"  says  Wordsworth,  in  the  memoranda  dic- 
tated to  Miss  Fenwick ;  "  and  the  eldest  son  was  distin- 
guished for  poetical  talent,  of  which  a  specimen  is  given 
in  my  Notes  to  the  Sonnets  on  the  Duddon.  Once  when, 
in  our  cottage  at  Townend,  I  was  talking  with  him  about 
poetry,  in  the  course  of  our  conversation  I  presumed  to 
find  fault  with  the  versification  of  Pope,  of  whom  he  was 
an  enthusiastic  admirer.  He  defended  him  with  a  warmth 
that  indicated  much  irritation ;  nevertheless,  I  could  not 
abandon  my  point,  and  said, '  In  compass  and  variety  of 
sound  your  own  versification  surpasses  his.'  Never  shall 
I  forget  the  change  in  his  countenance  and  tone  of  voice. 
The  storm  was  laid  in  a  moment;  he  no  longer  disputed 
my  judgment ;  and  I  passed  immediately  in  his  mind,  no 
doubt,  for  as  great  a  critic  as  ever  lived." 

It  was  with  personages  simple  and  unromantic  as  these 
that  Wordsworth  filled  the  canvas  of  his  longest  poem. 
Judged  by  ordinary  standards  the  Excursion  appears  an 
epic  without  action,  and  with  two  heroes,  the  Pastor  and 
the  Wanderer,  whose  characters  are  identical.  Its  form  is 
cumbrous  in  the  extreme,  and  large  tracts  of  it  have  little 
claim  to  the  name  of  poetry.  Wordsworth  compares  the 
Excursion  to  a  temple  of  which  his  smaller  poems  form 
subsidiary  shrines;  but  the  reader  will  more  often  liken 
the  small  poems  to  gems,  and  the  Excursion  to  the  rock 
from  which  they  were  extracted.  The  long  poem  con- 
tains, indeed,  magnificent  passages,  but  as  a  whole  it  is  a 


90  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

diffused  description  of  scenery  which  the  poet  has  else- 
where caught  in  brighter  glimpses ;  a  diffused  statement 
of  hopes  and  beliefs  which  have  crystallized  more  exqui- 
sitely elsewhere  round  moments  of  inspiring  emotion. 
The  Excursion,  in  short,  has  the  drawbacks  of  a  didactic 
poem  as  compared  with  lyrical  poems ;  but,  judged  as  a 
didactic  poem,  it  has  the  advantage  of  containing  teaching 
of  true  and  permanent  value. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  deduce  a  settled  scheme  of  phi- 
losophy from  these  discourses  among  the  mountains.  I 
would  urge  only  that,  as  a  guide  to  conduct,  Wordsworth's 
precepts  are  not  in  themselves  either  unintelligible  or  vis- 
ionary. For  whereas  some  moralists  would  have  us  amend 
Nature,  and  others  bid  us  follow  her,  there  is  apt  to  be 
something  impracticable  in  the  first  maxim,  and  something 
vague  in  the  second.  Asceticism,  quietism,  enthusiasm, 
ecstasy — all  systems  which  imply  an  unnatural  repression 
or  an  unnatural  excitation  of  our  faculties — are  ill-suited 
for  the  mass  of  mankind.  And  on  the  other  hand,  if  we 
are  told  to  follow  nature,  to  develope  our  original  charac- 
ter, we  are  too  often  in  doubt  as  to  which  of  our  conflict- 
ing instincts  to  follow,  what  part  of  our  complex  nature  to 
accept  as  our  regulating  self.  But  Wordsworth,  while  im- 
pressing on  us  conformity  to  nature  as  the  rule  of  life, 
suggests  a  test  of  such  conformity  which  can  be  practical- 
ly applied.  "The  child  is  father  of  the  man" — in  the 
words  which  stand  as  introduction  to  his  poetical  works, 
and  Wordsworth  holds  that  the  instincts  and  pleasures  of 
a  healthy  childhood  suflficieutly  indicate  the  lines  on  which 
our  maturer  character  should  be  formed.  The  joy  which 
began  in  the  mere  sense  of  existence  should  be  maintained 
>y  hopeful  faith ;  the  simplicity  which  began  in  inexperi- 
-t^jnce  should  be  recovered  by  meditation ;  the  love  which 


VIII.]  "THE  EXCURSION."  91 

loriginated  in  the  family  circle  should  expand  itself  over 
yjje  race  of  men.  And  the  calming  and  elevating  influence 
of  Nature — which  to  Wordsworth's  memory  seemed  the 
inseparable  concomitant  of  childish  years — should  be  con- 
stantly invoked  throughout  life  to  keep  the  heart  fresh 
and  the  eyes  open  to  the  mysteries  discernible  through 
her  radiant  veil.  In  a  word,  the  family  affections,  if  duly 
fostered,  the  influences  of  Nature,  if  duly  sought,  with 
some  knowledge  of  the  best  books,  are  material  enough  to 
"  build  up  our  moral  being"  and  to  outweigh  the  less  deep- 
seated  impulses  which  prompt  to  wrong-doing. 

If,  then,  surrounding  influences  make  so  decisive  a  dif- 
ference in  man's  moral  lot,  what  are  we  to  say  of  those 
who  never  have  the  chance  of  receiving  those  influences 
aright ;  who  are  reared,  with  little  parental  supervision,  in 
smoky  cities,  and  spend  their  lives  in  confined  and  monot- 
onous labour?  One  of  the  most  impressive  passages  in 
the  Excursion  is  an  indignant  complaint  of  the  injustice 
thus  done  to  the  factory  child.  Wordsworth  was  no 
fanatical  opponent  of  manufacturing  industry.  He  had 
intimate  friends  among  manufacturers ;  and  in  one  of  his 
letters  he  speaks  of  promising  himself  much  pleasure  from 
witnessing  the  increased  regard  for  the  welfare  of  factory 
hands  of  which  one  of  these  friends  had  set  the  example. 
But  he  never  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  life  of  the 
mill-hand  is  an  anomaly — is  a  life  not  in  the  order  of  nat- 
ure, and  which  requires  to  be  justified  by  manifest  neces- 
sity and  by  continuous  care.  The  question  to  what  extent 
we  may  acquiesce  in  the  continuance  of  a  low  order  of 
human  beings,  existing  for  our  enjoyment  rather  than  for 
their  own,  may  be  answered  with  plausibility  in  very  dif- 
ferent tones ;  from  the  Communist  who  cannot  acquiesce 
in  the  inferiority  of  any  one  man's  position  to  any  other's, 
G       5  20 


92  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

to  tbe  philosopher  who  holds  that  mankind  has  made  the 
most  eminent  progress  when  a  few  chosen  individuals  have 
been  supported  in  easy  brilliancy  by  a  population  of  serfs 
or  slaves.  Wordsworth's  answer  to  this  question  is  at 
once  conservative  and  philanthropic.  He  holds  to  the  dis- 
tinction of  classes,  and  thus  admits  a  difference  in  the  ful- 
ness and  value  of  human  lots.  But  he  will  not  consent  to 
any  social  arrangement  which  implies  a  necessary  moral 
inferiority  in  any  section  of  the  body  politic;  and  he 
esteems  it  the  statesman's  first  duty  to  provide  that  all 
citizens  shall  be  placed  under  conditions  of  life  which, 
however  humble,  shall  not  be  unfavourable  to  virtue. 

His  views  on  national  education,  which  at  first  sight  ap- 
pear so  inconsistent,  depend  on  the  same  conception  of 
national  welfare.  Wordsworth  was  one  of  the  earliest  and 
most  emphatic  proclaim ers  of  the  duty  of  the  State  in  this 
respect.  The  lines  in  which  he  insists  that  every  child 
ought  to  be  taught  to  read  are,  indeed,  often  quoted  as  an 
example  of  the  moralizing  baldness  of  much  of  his  blank 
verse.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  when  a  great  impulse  was 
given  to  education  (1820-30)  by  Bell  and  Lancaster,  by 
the  introduction  of  what  was  called  the  "  Madras  system  '* 
of  tuition  by  pupil -teachers,  and  the  spread  of  infant 
schools,  Wordsworth  was  found  unexpectedly  in  the  op- 
posite camp.  Considering  as  he  did  all  mental  require- 
ments as  entirely  subsidiary  to  moral  progress,  and  in 
themselves  of  very  little  value,  he  objected  to  a  system 
which,  instead  of  confining  itself  to  reading — that  indis- 
pensable channel  of  moral  nutriment — aimed  at  communi- 
cating knowledge  as  varied  and  advanced  as  time  and  funds 
would  allow.  He  objected  to  the  dissociation  of  school 
and  home  life — to  that  relegation  of  domestic  interests  and 
duties  to  the  background,  which  large  and  highly -organized 


VIII.]  "THE  EXCURSION."  93 

schools,  and  teachers  much  above  the  home  level,  must 
necessarily  involve.  And  yet  more  strongly,  and  as  it  may 
still  seem  to  many  minds,  veith  convincing  reason,  he  ob- 
jected to  an  eleemosynary  system,  which  "  precludes  the 
poor  mother  from  the  strongest  motive  human  nature  can 
be  actuated  by  for  industry,  for  forethought,  and  self- 
denial."  "  The  Spartan,*'  he  said,  "  and  other  ancient  com- 
munities, might  disregard  domestic  ties,  because  they  had 
the  substitution  of  country,  which  we  cannot  have.  Our 
course  is  to  supplant  domestic  attachments,  without  the 
possibility  of  substituting  others  more  capacious.  What 
can  grow  out  of  it  but  selfishness?"  The  half -century 
which  has  elapsed  since  Wordsworth  wrote  these  words 
has  evidently  altered  the  state  of  the  question.  It  has  im- 
pressed on  us  the  paramount  necessity  of  national  educa- 
tion, for  reasons  political  and  social  too  well  known  to  re- 
peat. But  it  may  be  feared  that  it  has  also  shifted  the 
incidence  of  Wordsworth's  arguments  in  a  more  sinister 
manner,  by  vastly  increasing  the  number  of  those  homes 
where  domestic  influence  of  the  kind  which  the  poet  saw 
around  him  at  Rydal  is  altogether  wanting,  and  school  is 
the  best  avenue  even  to  moral  well-being.  "  Heaven  and 
hell,"  he  writes  in  1808,  "are  scarcely  more  different  from 
each  other  than  SheflSeld  and  Manchester,  &c.,  differ  from 
the  plains  and  valleys  of  Surrey,  Essex,  Cumberland,  or 
Westmoreland."  It  is  to  be  feared,  indeed,  that  even 
"  the  plains  and  valleys  of  Surrey  and  Essex "  contain 
many  cottages  whose  spiritual  and  sanitary  conditions  fall 
far  short  of  the  poet's  ideal.  But  it  is  of  course  in  the 
great  and  growing  centres  of  population  that  the  dangers 
which  he  dreads  have  come  upon  us  in  their  most  ag- 
gravated form.  And  so  long  as  there  are  in  England  so 
many  homes  to  which  parental  care  and  the  influences  of 


f4  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

nature  are  alike  unknown,  no  protest  in  favour  of  the 
paramount  importance  of  these  primary  agencies  in  the 
formation  of  character  can  be  regarded  as  altogether  out 
of  date. 

With  such  severe  and  almost  prosaic  themes  is  the 
greater  part  of  the  Excursion  occupied.  Yet  the  poem  is 
far  from  being  composed  throughout  in  a  prosaic  spirit. 
"  Of  its  bones  is  coral  made ;"  its  arguments  and  theories 
have  lain  long  in  Wordsworth's  mind,  and  have  accreted 
to  themselves  a  rich  investiture  of  observation  and  feeling. 
Some  of  its  passages  rank  among  the  poet's  highest  flights. 
Such  is  the  passage  in  Book  I.  describing  the  boy's  rapt- 
ure at  sunrise ;  and  the  picture  of  a  sunset  at  the  close 
of  the  same  book.  Such  is  the  opening  of  Book  IV. ; 
and  the  passage  describing  the  wild  joy  of  roaming  through 
a  mountain  storm ;  and  the  metaphor  in  the  same  book 
which  compares  the  mind's  power  of  transfiguring  the 
obstacles  which  beset  her,  with  the  glory  into  which  the 
moon  incorporates  the  umbrage  that  would  intercept  her 
beams. 

It  would  scarcely  be  possible  at  the  present  day  that  a 
work  containing  such  striking  passages,  and  so  much  of 
substance  and  elevation — however  out  of  keeping  it  might 
be  with  the  ruling  taste  of  the  day — should  appear  with- 
out receiving  careful  study  from  many  quarters  and  warm 
appreciation  in  some  recognized  organs  of  opinion.  Criti- 
cism in  Wordsworth's  day  was  both  less  competent  and 
less  conscientious,  and  the  famous  "  this  will  never  do " 
of  Jeffrey  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  was  by  no  means  an 
extreme  specimen  of  the  general  tone  in  which  the  work 
was  received.  The  judgment  of  the  reviewers  influenced 
popular  taste ;  and  the  book  was  as  decided  a  pecuniary 
failure  as  Wordsworth's  previous  ventures  had  been. 


nil.]  "THE  EXCURSION."  9S 

And  here,  perhaps,  is  a  fit  occasion  to  speak  of  that 
strangely  violent  detraction  and  abuse  which  formed  so 
large  an  ingredient  in  Wordsworth's  life  —  or,  rather,  of 
that  which  is  the  only  element  of  permanent  interest  in 
such  a  matter — his  manner  of  receiving  and  replying  to 
it.  No  writer,  probably,  who  has  afterwards  achieved  a 
reputation  at  all  like  Wordsworth's,  has  been  so  long  rep- 
resented by  reviewers  as  purely  ridiculous.  And  in  Words- 
worth's manner  of  acceptance  of  this  fact  we  may  dis- 
cern all  the  strength,  and  something  of  the  stiffness,  of 
his  nature ;  we  may  recognize  an  almost,  but  not  quite, 
ideal  attitude  under  the  shafts  of  unmerited  obloquy. 
For  he  who  thus  is  arrogantly  censured  should  remember 
both  the  dignity  and  the  frailty  of  man ;  he  should  wholly 
forgive,  and  almost  wholly  forget ;  but,  nevertheless,  should 
retain  such  serviceable  hints  as  almost  any  criticism,  how- 
ever harsh  or  reckless,  can  afford,  and  go  on  his  way  with 
no  bitter  broodings,  but  yet  (to  use  Wordsworth's  ex- 
pression in  another  context)  "  with  a  melancholy  in  the 
soul,  a  sinking  inward  into  ourselves  from  thought  to 
thought,  a  steady  remonstrance,  and  a  high  resolve." 

How  far  his  own  self-assertion  may  becomingly  be  car- 
ried in  reply,  is  another  and  a  delicate  question.  There 
is  almost  necessarily  something  distasteful  to  us  not  only 
in  self-praise  but  even  in  a  thorough  self  -  appreciation. 
We  desire  of  the  ideal  character  that  his  faculties  of  ad- 
miration should  be,  as  it  were,  absorbed  in  an  eager  per- 
ception of  the  merits  of  others — that  a  kind  of  shrinking 
delicacy  should  prevent  him  from  appraising  his  own 
achievements  with  a  similar  care.  Often,  indeed,  there  is 
something  most  winning  in  a  touch  of  humorous  blind- 
ness :  *'  Well,  Miss  Sophia,  and  how  do  you  like  the 
Lady  of  the  LakeV     "Oh,  I've  not  read  it;  papa  says 


96  WORDSWORTH.  [chaf. 

there's  nothing  so  bad  for  young  people  as  reading  bad 
poetry." 

But  there  are  circumstances  under  which  this  graceful 
absence  of  self-consciousness  can  no  longer  be  maintained. 
When  a  man  believes  that  he  has  a  message  to  deliver 
that  vitally  concerns  mankind,  and  when  that  message  is 
received  with  contempt  and  apathy,  he  is  necessarily  driv- 
en back  upon  himself ;  he  is  forced  to  consider  whether 
what  he  has  to  say  is  after  all  so  important,  and  whether 
his  mode  of  saying  it  be  right  and  adequate.  A  neces- 
sity of  this  kind  was  forced  upon  both  Shelley  and  Words- 
worth. Shelley — the  very  type  of  self  -  forgetful  enthu- 
siasm— was  driven  at  last  by  the  world's  treatment  of  him 
into  a  series  of  moods  sometimes  bitter  and  sometimes 
self-distrustful — into  a  sense  of  aloofness  and  detachment 
from  the  mass  of  men,  which  the  poet  who  would  fain 
improve  and  exalt  them  should  do  his  utmost  not  to  feel. 
On  Wordsworth's  more  stubborn  nature  the  eJBEect  pro- 
duced by  many  years  of  detraction  was  of  a  different  kind. 
Naturally  introspective,  he  was  driven  by  abuse  and  ridi- 
cule into  taking  stock  of  himself  more  frequently  and 
more  laboriously  than  ever.  He  formed  an  estimate  of 
himself  and  his  writings  which  was,  on  the  whole  (as  will 
now  be  generally  admitted),  a  just  one ;  and  this  view  he 
expressed  when  occasion  offered — in  sober  language,  in- 
deed, but  with  calm  conviction,  and  with  precisely  the 
same  air  of  speaking  from  undoubted  knowledge  as  when 
he  described  the  beauty  of  Cumbrian  mountains  or  the 
virtue  of  Cumbrian  homes. 

"  It  is  impossible,"  he  wrote  to  Lady  Beaumont  in  1807, 
"  that  any  expectations  can  be  lower  than  mine  concern- 
ing the  immediate  effect  of  this  little  work  upon  what  is 
called  the  public.     I  do  not  here  take  into  consideration 


viii.]  "THE  EXCURSION."  9Y 

the  envy  and  malevolence,  and  all  the  bad  passions  which 
always  stand  in  the  way  of  a  work  of  any  merit  from  a 
living  poet ;  but  merely  think  of  the  pure,  absolute, 
honest  ignorance  in  which  all  worldlings,  of  every  rank 
and  situation,  must  be  enveloped,  with  respect  to  the 
thoughts,  feelings,  and  images  on  which  the  life  of  my 
poems  depends.  The  things  which  I  have  taken,  whether 
from  within  or  without,  what  have  they  to  do  with  routs, 
dinners,  morning  calls,  hurry  from  door  to  door,  from 
street  to  street,  on  foot  or  in  carriage ;  with  Mr.  Pitt  or 
Mr.  Fox,  Mr.  Paul  or  Sir  Francis  Burdett,  the  West- 
minster election  or  the  borough  of  Honiton  ?  In  a  word 
— for  I  cannot  stop  to  make  my  way  through  the  hurry 
of  images  that  present  themselves  to  me — what  have  they 
to  do  with  endless  talking  about  things  that  nobody  cares 
anything  for,  except  as  far  as  their  own  vanity  is  con- 
cerned, and  this  with  persons  they  care  nothing  for,  but 
as  their  vanity  or  selfishness  is  concerned?  What  have 
they  to  do  (to  say  all  at  once)  with  a  life  without  love? 
In  such  a  life  there  can  be  no  thought;  for  we  have  no 
thought  (save  thoughts  of  pain),  but  as  far  as  we  have 
love  and  admiration. 

"  It  is  an  awf  al  truth,  that  there  neither  is  nor  can  be 
any  genuine  enjoyment  of  poetry  among  nineteen  out  of 
twenty  of  those  persons  who  live,  or  wish  to  live,  in  the 
broad  light  of  the  world — among  those  who  either  are,  or 
are  striving  to  make  themselves,  people  of  consideration  in 
society.  This  is  a  truth,  and  an  awful  one  ;  because  to  be 
incapable  of  a  feeling  of  poetry,  in  my  sense  of  the  word, 
is  to  be  without  love  of  human  nature  and  reverence  for 
God. 

"  Upon  this  I  shall  insist  elsewhere ;  at  present  let  me 
confine  myself  to  my  object,  which  is  to  make  you,  my 


98  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

dear  friend,  as  easy-hearted  as  myself  with  respect  to  these 
poems.  Trouble  not  yourself  upon  their  present  recep- 
tion. Of  what  moment  is  that  compared  with  what  I 
trust  is  their  destiny  ? — to  console  the  afflicted ;  to  add 
sunshine  to  daylight,  by  making  the  happy  happier ;  to 
teach  the  young  and  the  gracious  of  every  age  to  see,  to 
think,  and  feel,  and  therefore  to  become  more  actively 
and  securely  virtuous ;  this  is  their  office,  which  I  trust 
they  will  faithfully  perform  long  after  we  (that  is,  all  that 
is  mortal  of  us)  are  mouldered  in  our  graves." 

Such  words  as  these  come  with  dignity  from  the  mouth 
of  a  man  like  Wordsworth  when  he  has  been,  as  it  were, 
driven  to  bay — when  he  is  consoling  an  intimate  friend, 
distressed  at  the  torrent  of  ridicule  which,  as  she  fears, 
must  sweep  his  self-confidence  and  his  purposes  away.  He 
may  be  permitted  to  assure  her  that  "  my  ears  are  stone* 
dead  to  this  idle  buzz,  and  my  flesh  as  insensible  as  iroB 
to  these  petty  stings,"  and  to  accompany  his  assurance 
with  a  reasoned  statement  of  the  grounds  of  his  unskaken 
hopes. 

We  feel,  however,  that  such  an  expression  of  self-reli- 
ance on  the  part  of  a  great  man  should  be  accompanied 
with  some  proof  that  no  conceit  or  impatience  is  mixed 
with  his  steadfast  calm.  If  he  believes  the  public  to  be 
really  unable  to  appreciate  himself,  he  must  show  no  sur- 
prise when  they  admire  his  inferiors ;  he  must  remember 
that  the  case  would  be  far  worse  if  they  admired  no  one 
at  all.  Nor  must  he  descend  from  his  own  unpopular 
merits  on  the  plea  that  after  catching  the  public  attention 
by  what  is  bad  he  will  retain  it  for  what  is  good.  If  he' 
is  so  sure  that  he  is  in  the  right  he  can  afford  to  wait  and 
let  the  world  come  round  to  him.  Wordsworth's  conduct 
satisfies  both  these  tests.     It  is,  indeed,  curious  to  observe 


tul]  "THE  EXCURSION."  99 

how  much  abuse  this  inoffensive  reduse  received,  and  how 
absolutely  he  avoided  returning  it.  Byron,  for  instance, 
must  have  seemed  in  his  eyes  guilty  of  something  far 
more  injurious  to  mankind  than  "  a  drowsy,  frowsy  poem, 
called  the  Excursion,^''  could  possibly  appear.  But,  ex- 
cept in  one  or  two  private  letters,  Wordsworth  has  nev- 
er alluded  to  Byron  at  all.  Shelley's  lampoon — a  singu- 
lar instance  of  the  random  blows  of  a  noble  spirit,  strik- 
ing at  what,  if  better  understood,  it  would  eagerly  have 
revered  —  Wordsworth  seems  never  to  have  read.  Nor 
did  the  violent  attacks  of  the  Edinburgh  and  the  Quarter- 
ly Reviews  provoke  him  to  any  rejoinder.  To  "  English 
Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers"  —  leagued  against  him  as 
their  common  prey — he  opposed  a  dignified  silence ;  and 
the  only  moral  injury  which  he  derived  from  their  as- 
saults lay  in  that  sense  of  the  absence  of  trustworthy  ex- 
ternal criticism  which  led  him  to  treat  everything  which 
he  had  once  written  down  as  if  it  were  a  special  revela- 
tion, and  to  insist  with  equal  earnestness  on  his  most  tri- 
fling as  on  his  most  important  pieces — on  Goody  Blake 
and  The  Idiot  Boy  as  on  The  Cuckoo  or  The  Daffodils. 
The  sense  of  humour  is  apt  to  be  the  first  grace  which  is 
lost  under  persecution  ;  and  much  of  Wordsworth's  heavi- 
ness and  stiff  exposition  of  commonplaces  is  to  be  traced 
to  a  feeling  which  he  could  scarcely  avoid,  that  "all  day 
long  he  had  lifted  up  his  voice  to  a  perverse  and  gainsay- 
ing generation." 

To  the  pecuniary  loss  inflicted  on  him  by  these  adverse 
criticisms  he  was  justly  sensible.  He  was  far  from  ex- 
pecting, or  even  desiring,  to  be  widely  popular  or  to  make 
a  rapid  fortune ;  but  he  felt  that  the  labourer  was  worthy 
of  his  hire,  and  that  the  devotion  of  years  to  literature 
should  have  been  met  with  some  moderate  degree  of  the 
5* 


100  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

usual  form  of  recognitiou  which  the  world  accords  to 
those  who  work  for  it.  In  1820  he  speaks  of  "the  whole 
of  my  returns  from  the  writing  trade  not  amounting  to 
seven -score  pounds;"  and  as  late  as  1843,  when  at  the 
height  of  his  fame,  he  was  not  ashamed  of  confessing 
the  importance  which  he  had  always  attached  to  this  par- 
ticular. 

"  So  sensible  am  I,"  he  says,  "  of  the  deficiencies  in  all 
that  I  write,  and  so  far  does  everything  that  I  attempt  fall 
short  of  what  I  wish  it  to  be,  that  even  private  publica- 
tion, if  such  a  term  may  be  allowed,  requires  more  resolu- 
tion than  I  can  command.  I  have  written  to  give  vent  to 
my  own  mind,  and  not  without  hope  that,  some  time  or 
other,  kindred  minds  might  benefit  by  my  labours ;  but  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  I  should  never  have  ventured  to 
send  forth  any  verses  of  mine  to  the  world,  if  it  had  not 
been  done  on  the  pressure  of  personal  occasions.  Had  I 
been  a  rich  man,  my  productions,  like  this  Epistle,  the 
Tragedy  of  the  Borderers,  &c.,  would  most  likely  have  been 
confined  to  manuscript." 

An  interesting  passage  from  an  unpublished  letter  of 
Miss  Wordsworth's,  on  the  White  Doe  of  Rylstone,  con- 
firms this  statement : 

"  My  brother  was  very  much  pleased  with  your  frankness  in  tell- 
ing us  that  you  did  not  perfectly  like  his  poem.  He  wishes  to  know 
what  your  feelings  were — whether  the  tale  itself  did  not  interest  you 
— or  whether  you  could  not  enter  into  the  conception  of  Emily's 
character,  or  take  delight  in  that  visionary  communion  which  is 
supposed  to  have  existed  between  her  and  the  Doe.  Do  not  fear  to 
give  him  pain.  He  is  far  too  much  accustomed  to  be  abused  to  re- 
ceive pain  from  it  (at  least  as  far  as  he  himself  is  concerned).  My 
reason  for  asking  you  these  questions  is,  that  some  of  our  friends, 
who  are  equal  admirers  of  the  White  Doe  and  of  my  brother's  pub- 
lished poems,  think  that  this  poem  will  sell  on  account  of  the  story; 


vm.]  "  THE  EXdlJ^Sj'ON;"  ^  i  • '  \ , )  I  >(  \  \  ]  JpY- 

that  is,  that  the  story  will  bear  up  those  points  which  are  above  the 
level  of  the  public  taste  ;  whereas,  the  two  last  volumes— except  by 
a  few  solitary  individuals,  who  are  passionately  devoted  to  my  broth- 
er's works — are  abused  by  wholesale. 

"  Now,  as  his  sole  object  in  publishing  this  poem  at  present  would 
be  for  the  sake  of  the  money,  he  would  not  publish  it  if  he  did  not 
think,  from  the  several  judgments  of  his  friends,  that  it  would  be 
likely  to  have  a  sale.  He  has  no  pleasure  in  publishing — he  even 
detests  it ;  and  if  it  were  not  that  he  is  not  over-wealthy,  he  would 
leave  aK  ais  works  to  be  published  after  his  death.  William  himself 
is  sure  that  the  White  Doe  will  not  sell  or  be  admired,  except  by  a 
very  few,  at  first ;  and  only  yields  to  Mary's  entreaties  and  mine. 
We  are  determined,  however,  if  we  are  deceived  this  time,  to  let  him 
have  his  own  way  in  future." 

These  passages  must  be  taken,  no  doubt,  as  represent- 
ing one  aspect  only  of  the  poet's  impulses  in  the  matter. 
With  his  deep  conviction  of  the  world's  real,  though  un- 
recognized, need  of  a  pure  vein  of  poetry,  we  can  hardly 
imagine  him  as  permanently  satisfied  to  defer  his  own 
contribution  till  after  his  death.  Yet  we  may  certainly 
believe  that  the  need  of  money  helped  him  to  overcome 
much  diflSdence  as  to  publication ;  and  we  may  discern 
something  dignified  in  his  frank  avowal  of  this  when  it 
is  taken  in  connexion  with  his  scrupulous  abstinence  from 
any  attempt  to  win  the  suffrages  of  the  multitude  by 
means  unworthy  of  his  high  vocation.  He  could  never, 
indeed,  have  written  poems  which  could  have  vied  in  im- 
mediate popularity  with  those  of  Byron  or  Scott.  But 
the  criticisms  on  the  first  edition  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads 
must  have  shown  him  that  a  slight  alteration  of  method — 
nay,  even  the  excision  of  a  few  pages  in  each  volume, 
pages  certain  to  be  loudly  objected  to — would  have  made 
a  marked  difference  in  the  sale  and  its  proceeds.  From 
this  point  of  view,  even  poems  which  we  may  now  feel  to 


.i<]f?.r  ;  ,W0^B6W0RTH.  [cHAP.vm. 

have  been  needlessly  puerile  and  grotesque  acquire  a  cer- 
tain impressiveness,  when  we  recognize  that  the  theory 
which  demanded  their  composition  was  one  which  their 
author  was  willing  to  uphold  at  the  cost  of  some  years 
of  real  physical  privation,  and  of  the  postponement  for  a 
generation  of  his  legitimate  fame. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

POETIC    DICTION. "  LAODAMIA." "  EVENING    QBE." 

The  Excursion  appeared  in  1814,  and  in  the  course  of  tho 
next  year  Wordsworth  republished  his  minor  poems,  so 
arranged  as  to  indicate  the  faculty  of  the  mind  which  he 
considered  to  have  been  predominant  in  the  composition 
of  each.  To  most  readers  this  disposition  has  always 
seemed  somewhat  arbitrary ;  and  it  was  once  suggested  to 
Wordsworth  that  a  chronological  arrangement  would  be 
better.  The  manner  in  which  Wordsworth  met  this  pro- 
posal indicated  the  limit  of  his  absorption  in  himself — 
his  real  desire  only  to  dwell  on  his  own  feelings  in  such  a 
way  as  might  make  them  useful  to  others.  For  he  reject- 
ed the  plan  as  too  egoistical — as  emphasizing  the  succes- 
sion of  moods  in  the  poet's  mind,  rather  than  the  lessons 
which  those  moods  could  teach.  His  objection  points,  at 
any  rate,  to  a  real  danger  which  any  man's  simplicity  of 
character  incurs  by  dwelling  too  attentively  on  the  chang- 
ing phases  of  his  own  thought.  But  after  the  writer's 
death  the  historical  spirit  will  demand  that  poems,  like 
other  artistic  products,  should  be  disposed  for  the  most 
part  in  the  order  of  time. 

In  a  preface  to  this  edition  of  1815,  and  a  supplemen- 
tary essay,  he  developed  the  theory  on  poetry  already  set 
forth  in  a  well-known  preface  to  the  second  edition  of  the 


104  WORDSWORTH.  [chap 

Lyrical  Ballads.  Much  of  the  matter  of  these  essays,  re- 
ceived at  the  time  with  contemptuous  aversion,  is  now  ac- 
cepted as  truth ;  and  few  compositions  of  equal  length  con- 
tain so  much  of  vigorous  criticism  and  sound  reflection. 
It  is  only  when  they  generalize  too  confidently  that  they 
are  in  danger  of  misleading  us ;  for  all  expositions  of  the 
art  and  practice  of  poetry  must  necessarily  be  incomplete. 
Poetry,  like  all  the  arts,  is  essentially  a  "  mystery."  Its 
charm  depends  upon  qualities  which  we  can  neither  define 
accurately,  nor  reduce  to  rule,  nor  create  again  at  pleasure. 
Mankind,  however,  are  unwilling  to  admit  this ;  and  they 
endeavour  from  time  to  time  to  persuade  themselves  that 
they  have  discovered  the  rules  which  will  enable  them  to 
produce  the  desired  effect.  And  so  much  of  the  effect  can 
thus  be  reproduced,  that  it  is  often  possible  to  believe  for 
a  time  that  the  problem  has  been  solved.  Pope,  to  take- 
the  instance  which  was  prominent  in  Wordsworth's  mind, 
was  by  general  admission  a  poet.  But  his  success  seemed 
to  depend  on  imitable  peculiarities ;  and  Pope's  imitators 
were  so  like  Pope  that  it  was  hard  to  draw  a  line  and  say 
where  they  ceased  to  be  poets.  At  last,  however,  this  im- 
itative school  began  to  prove  too  much.  If  all  the  insipid 
verses  which  they  wrote  were  poetry,  what  was  the  use  of 
writing  poetry  at  all  ?  A  reaction  succeeded,  which  as- 
serted that  poetry  depends  on  emotion,  and  not  on  polish ; 
that  it  consists  precisely  in  those  things  which  frigid  im- 
itators lack.  Cowper,  Burns,  and  Crabbe  (especially  in  his 
Sir  Eustace  Grey)  had  preceded  Wordsworth  as  leaders  of 
this  reaction.  But  they  had  acted  half  unconsciously,  or 
had  even  at  times  themselves  attempted  to  copy  the  very 
style  which  they  were  superseding. 

Wordsworth,  too,  began   with   a   tendency  to    imitate 
Pope,  but  only  in  the  school  exercises  which  he  wrote  as 


cl]  poetic  diction.  106 

a  boy.  CEoetry  soon  became  to  him  the  expression  of  his 
own  deep  and  simple  feelings ;  and  then  he  rebelled  against 
rhetoric  and  unreality,  and  found  for  himself  a  directer  and 
truer  voice.  "  I  have  proposed  to  myself  to  imitate  and, 
as  far  as  is  possible,  to  adopt  the  very  language  of  men.  .  .  . 
I  have  taken  as  much  pains  to  avoid  what  is  usually  called 
poetic  diction  as  others  ordinarily  take  to  produce  it."  And 
he  erected  this  practice  into  a  general  principle  in  the  fol- 
lowing passage : 

"  I  do  not  doubt  that  it  may  be  safely  aflfirmed  that  there  neither 
is,  nor  can  be,  any  essential  difference  between  the  language  of  prose 
and  metrical  composition.  We  are  fond  of  tracing  the  resemblance 
between  poetry  and  painting,  and  accordingly  we  call  them  sisters ; 
but  where  shall  we  find  bonds  of  connexion  suflBciently  strict  to  typify 
the  affinity  between  metrical  and  prose  composition  ?  If  it  be  affirm- 
ed that  rhyme  and  metrical  arrangement  of  themselves  constitute  a 
distinction  which  overturns  what  I  have  been  saying  on  the  strict 
affinity  of  metrical  language  with  that  of  prose,  and  paves  the  way 
for  other  artificial  distinctions  which  the  mind  voluntarily  admits,  I 
answer  that  the  language  of  such  poetry  as  I  am  recommending  is, 
as  far  as  is  possible,  a  selection  of  the  language  really  spoken  by 
men ;  that  this  selection,  wherever  it  is  made  with  true  taste  and 
feeling,  will  of  itself  form  a  distinction  far  greater  than  would  at 
first  be  imagined,  and  will  entirely  separate  the  composition  from  the 
vulgarity  and  meanness  of  ordinary  life ;  and  if  metre  be  superadded 
thereto,  I  believe  that  a  dissimilitude  will  be  produced  altogether  suf- 
ficient for  the  gratification  of  a  rational  mind.  What  other  distinc- 
tion would  we  have  ?  whence  is  it  to  come  ?  and  where  is  it  to  exist  ?" 

There  is  a  definiteness  and  simplicity  about  this  descrip- 
tion of  poetry  which  may  well  make  us  wonder  why  this 
precious  thing  (producible,  apparently,  as  easily  as  Pope's 
imitators  supposed,  although  by  means  different  from 
theirs)  is  not  offered  to  us  by  more  persons,  and  of  better 
quality.     And  it  will  not  be  hard  to  show  that  a  good 


106  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

poetical  style  must  possess  certain  cliaracteristics  which, 
although  something  like  them  must  exist  in  a  good  prose 
style,  are  carried  in  poetry  to  a  pitch  so  much  higher  as 
virtually  to  need  a  specific  faculty  for  their  successful  pro- 
duction. 

To  illustrate  the  inadequacy  of  Wordsworth's  theory  to 
explain  the  merits  of  his  own  poetry,  I  select  a  stanza 
from  one  of  his  simplest  and  most  characteristic  poems, 
The  Affliction  of  Margaret : 

"  Perhaps  some  dungeon  hears  thee  groan, 
Maimed,  mangled  by  inhuman  men, 
Or  thou  upon  a  Desert  thrown 
Inheritest  the  lion's  Den  ; 
Or  hast  been  summoned  to  the  Deep, 
Thou,  thou  and  all  thy  mates,  to  keep 
An  incommunicable  sleep." 

These  lines,  supposed  to  be  uttered  by  "  a  poor  widow 
at  Penrith,"  afford  a  fair  illustration  of  what  Wordsworth 
calls  "  the  language  really  spoken  by  men,"  with  "  metre 
superadded."  "  What  other  distinction  from  prose,"  he 
asks,  "  would  we  have  ?"  We  may  answer  that  we  would 
have  what  he  has  actually  given  us,  viz.,  an  appropriate 
and  attractive  music,  lying  both  in  the  rhythm  and  in  the 
actual  sound  of  the  words  used — a  music  whose  complex- 
ity may  be  indicated  here  by  drawing  out  some  of  its  ele- 
ments in  detail,  at  the  risk  of  appearing  pedantic  and 
technical.  We  observe,  then  (a),  that  the  general  move- 
ment of  the  lines  is  unusually  slow.  They  contain  a  very 
large  proportion  of  strong  accents  and  long  vowels,  to  suit 
the  tone  of  deep  and  despairing  sorrow.  In  six  places 
only  out  of  twenty-eight  is  the  accent  weak  where  it  might 
be  expected  to  be  strong  (in  the  second  syllable,  namely, 
of  the  iambic  foot),  and  in  eich  of  these  cases  the  omia* 


IX.]  POETIC  DICTION.  107 

sion  of  a  possible  accent  throws  greater  weight  on  the 
next  succeeding  accent — on  the  accents,  that  is  to  say, 
contained  in  the  words  inhuman,  desert,  lion,  summoned, 
deep,  and  sleep,  (b)  The  first  four  lines  contain  subtle 
alliterations  of  the  letters  d,  h,  m,  and  th.  In  this  con- 
nexion it  should  be  remembered  that  when  consonants 
are  thus  repeated  at  the  beginning  of  syllables,  those  syl- 
lables need  not  be  at  the  beginning  of  words ;  and  fur- 
ther, that  repetitions  scarcely  more  numerous  than  chance 
alone  would  have  occasioned  may  be  so  placed  by  the 
poet  as  to  produce  a  strongly  -  felt  effect.  If  any  one 
doubts  the  effectiveness  of  the  unobvious  alliterations 
here  insisted  on,  let  him  read  (l)  "jungle"  for  "desert," 
(2)  "maybe"  for  "perhaps,"  (3)  "tortured"  for  "man- 
l^led,"  (4)  "blown"  for  "thrown,"  and  he  will  become 
sensible  of  the  lack  of  the  metrical  support  which  the 
existing  consonants  give  one  another.  The  three  last 
lines  contain  one  or  two  similar  alliterations  on  which  I 
need  not  dwell,  (c)  The  words  inkeritest  and  summoned 
are  by  no  means  such  as  "  a  poor  widow,"  even  at  Pen- 
rith, would  employ ;  they  are  used  to  intensify  the  imag- 
ined relation  which  connects  the  missing  man  with  (1) 
the  wild  beasts  who  surround  him,  and  (2)  the  invisible 
Power  which  leads ;  so  that  something  mysterious  and 
awful  is  added  to  his  fate,  {d)  This  impression  is  height- 
ened by  the  use  of  the  word  incommunicable  in  an  unu- 
sual sense,  "  incapable  of  being  communicated  witk,^^  in- 
stead of  "  incapable  of  being  communicated ;"  while  (e) 
the  expression  "to  keep  an  incommunicable  sleep"  for 
"  to  lie  dead,"  gives  dignity  to  the  occasion  by  carrying 
the  mind  back  along  a  train  of  literary  associations  of 
which  the  well-known  aripixova  vr]ypETOv  virvov  of  Mos- 

chus  may  be  taken  as  the  type. 
H  21 


108  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

We  must  not,  of  course,  suppose  that  Wordsworth  con- 
sciously sought  these  alliterations,  arranged  these  accents, 
resolved  to  introduce  an  unusual  word  in  the  last  line,  or 
hunted  for  a  classical  allusion.  But  what  the  poet's  brain 
does  not  do  consciously  it  does  unconsciously ;  a  selective 
action  is  going  on  in  its  recesses  simultaneously  with  the 
overt  train  of  thought,  and  on  the  degree  of  this  uncon- 
scious suggestiveness  the  richness  and  melody  of  the  poe- 
try will  depend. 

No  rules  can  secure  the  attainment  of  these  effects ;  an(^ 
the  very  same  artifices  which  are  delightful  when  used  hy 
one  man  seem  mechanical  and  offensive  when  used  by 
another.  Nor  is  it  by  any  means  always  the  case  that 
the  man  who  can  most  delicately  appreciate  the  melody 
of  the  poetry  of  others  will  be  able  to  produce  similar  mel- 
ody himself.  Nay,  even  if  he  can  produce  it  one  year,  it 
by  no  means  follows  that  he  will  be  able  to  produce  it 
the  next.  Of  all  qualifications  for  writing  poetry  this  in- 
ventive music  is  the  most  arbitrarily  distributed,  and  the 
most  evanescent.  But  it  is  the  more  important  to  dwell 
on  its  necessity,  inasmuch  as  both  good  and  bad  poets  are 
tempted  to  ignore  it.  The  good  poet  prefers  to  ascribe 
his  success  to  higher  qualities ;  to  his  imagination,  eleva- 
tion of  thought,  descriptive  faculty.  The  bad  poet  can 
more  easily  urge  that  his  thoughts  are  too  advanced  for 
mankind  to  appreciate  than  that  his  melody  is  too  sweet 
for  their  ears  to  catch.  And  when  the  gift  vanishes  no 
poet  is  willing  to  confess  that  it  is  gone ;  so  humiliating 
is  it  to  lose  power  ever  mankind  by  the  loss  of  something 
which  seems  quite  independent  of  intellect  or  character.. 
And  yet  so  it  is.  For  some  twenty  years  at  most  (1798- 
1818)  Wordsworth  possessed  this  gift  of  melody.  During 
those  years  he  wrote  works  which  profoundly  influenced 


IS.]  POETIC  DICTION.  109 

mankind.  The  gift  then  left  him ;  he  continued  as  wise 
and  as  earnest  as  ever,  but  his  poems  had  no  longer  any 
potency,  nor  his  existence  much  public  importance. 

Humiliating  as  such  reflections  may  seem,  they  are  in 
accordance  with  actual  experience  in  all  branches  of  art. 
The  fact  is  that  the  pleasures  which  art  gives  us  are  com- 
plex in  the  extreme.  We  are  always  disposed  to  dwell 
on  such  of  their  elements  as  are  explicable,  and  can  in 
some  way  be  traced  to  moral  or  intellectual  sources.  But 
tliey  contain  also  other  elements  which  are  inexplicable, 
non-moral,  and  non-mtellectual,  and  which  render  most  of 
our  attempted  explanations  of  artistic  merit  so  incomplete 
as  to  be  practically  misleading.  Among  such  incomplete 
explanations  Wordsworth's  essays  must  certainly  be  ranked. 
It  would  not  be  safe  for  any  man  to  believe  that  he  had 
produced  true  poetry  because  he  had  fulfilled  the  condi- 
tions which  Wordsworth  lays  down.  But  the  essays  ef- 
fected what  is  perhaps  as  much  as  the  writer  on  art  can 
fairly  hope  to  accomplish.  They  placed  in  a  striking 
light  that  side  of  the  subject  which  had  been  too  long 
ignored ;  they  aided  in  recalling  an  art  which  had  be- 
come conventional  and  fantastic  into  the  normal  current 
of  English  thought  and  speech. 

It  may  be  added  that,  both  in  doctrine  and  practice, 
Wordsworth  exhibits  a  progressive  reaction  from  the  ex- 
treme views  with  which  he  starts  towards  that  common 
vein  of  good  sense  and  sound  judgment  which  may  be 
traced  back  to  Horace,  Longinus,  and  Aristotle.  His  first 
preface  is  violently  polemic.  He  attacks  with  reason  that 
conception  of  the  suuniiie  and  beautiful  which  is  repre- 
sented by  Dryden's  picture  of  "  Cortes  alone  in  his  night- 
gown," remarking  that  "  the  mountains  seem  to  nod  their 
drowsy  heads."     But   the  only  example  of  true   poetry 


110  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

whicli  lie  sees  fit  to  adduce  in  contrast  consists  ir  a  stanza 
from  the  Babes  in  the  Wood.  In  his  preface  of  1815  he 
is  not  less  severe  on  false  sentiment  and  false  observation. 
But  his  views  of  the  complexity  and  dignity  of  poetry 
have  been  much  developed,  and  he  is  willing  now  to  draw 
his  favourable  instances  from  Shakspeare,  Milton,  Virgil, 
and  himself. 

His  own  practice  underwent  a  corresponding  change. 
It  is  only  to  a  few  poems  of  his  earlier  years  that  the  fa- 
mous parody  of  the  Rejected  Addresses  fairly  applies — • 

"  My  father's  walls  are  made  of  brick, 
But  not  so  tall  and  not  so  thick 

As  these ;  and  goodness  me ! 
Mj  father's  beams  are  made  of  wood, 
But  never,  never  half  so  good 

As  those  that  now  I  see !" 

Lines  something  like  these  might  have  occurred  in  The 
Thorn  or  The  Idiot  Boy.  Nothing  could  be  more  different 
from  the  style  of  the  sonnets,  or  of  the  Ode  to  Duty,  or  of 
Laodamia.  And  yet  both  the  simplicity  of  the  earlier  and 
the  pomp  of  the  later  poems  were  almost  always  noble ; 
nor  is  the  transition  from  the  one  ^tyle  to  the  other  a  per- 
plexing or  abnormal  thing.  For  all  sincere  styles  are  con- 
gruous to  one  another,  whether  they  be  adorned  or  no,  as 
all  high  natures  are  congruous  to  one  another,  whether  in 
the  garb  of  peasant  or  of  prince.  What  is  incongruous  to 
both  is  affectation,  vulgarity,  egoism  ;  and  while  the  noble 
style  can  be  interchangeably  childlike  or  magnificent,  as  its 
theme  requires,  the  ignoble  can  neither  simplify  itself  into 
purity  nor  deck  itself  into  grandeur. 

It  need  not,  therefore,  surprise  us  to  find  the  classical 
models  becoming  more   and  more  dominant  in  Words- 


n]  "LAODAMIA."  Ill 

worth's  mind,  till  the  poet  of  Poor  Susan  and  The  Cuckoo 
spends  months  over  the  attempt  to  translate  the  uEneid — 
to  win  the  secret  of  that  style  which  he  placed  at  the  head 
of  all  poetic  styles,  and  of  those  verses  which  "  wind,"  as 
he  says,  "  with  the  majesty  of  the  Conscript  Fathers  enter- 
ing the  Senate-house  in  solemn  procession,"  and  envelope 
in  their  imperial  melancholy  all  the  sorrows  and  the  fates 
of  man. 

And,  indeed,  so  tranquil  and  uniform  was  the  life  which 
we  are  now  retracing,  and  at  the  same  time  so  receptive 
of  any  noble  influence  which  opportunity  might  bring, 
that  a  real  epoch  is  marked  in  Wordsworth's  poetical  career 
by  the  mere  rereading  of  some  Latin  authors  in  1814-16 
with  a  view  to  preparing  his  eldest  son  for  the  University. 
Among  the  poets  whom  he  thus  studied  was  one  in  whom 
he  might  seem  to  discern  his  own  spirit  endowed  with 
grander  proportions,  and  meditating  on  sadder  fates. 
Among  the  poets  of  the  battlefield,  of  the  study,  of  the 
boudoir,  he  encountered  the  first  Priest  of  Nature,  the 
first  poet  in  Europe  who  had  deliberately  shunned  the 
life  of  courts  and  cities  for  the  mere  joy  in  Nature's  pres- 
ence, for  "  sweet  Parthenope  and  the  fields  beside  Vesevus' 
hill." 

There  are,  indeed,  passages  in  the  Georgics  so  Words- 
worthian,  as  we  now  call  it,  in  tone,  that  it  is  hard  to  real- 
ize what  centuries  separated  them  from  the  Sonnet  to  Lady 
Beaumont  or  from  Ruth.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the  pict- 
ure of  the  Corycian  old  man,  who  had  made  himself  in- 
dependent of  the  seasons  by  his  gardening  skill,  so  that 
"when  gloomy  winter  was  still  rending  the  stones  with 
frost,  still  curbing  with  ice  the  rivers'  onward  flow,  he  even 
then  was  plucking  the  soft  hyacinth's  bloom,  and  chid  the 
tardy  summer  and  delaying  airs  of  spring."     Such,  again, 


112  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

is  the  passage  where  the  poet  breaks  from  the  glories  of 
successful  industry  into  the  delight  of  watching  the  great 
processes  which  nature  accomplishes  untutored  and  alone, 
"  the  joy  of  gazing  on  Cytorus  waving  with  boxwood,  and 
on  forests  of  Narycian  pine,  on  tracts  that  never  felt  the 
harrow,  nor  knew  the  care  of  man." 

Such  thoughts  as  these  the  Roman  and  the  English  poet 
had  in  common — the  heritage  of  untarnished  souls. 

"I  asked;  'twas  whispered:  The  device 
To  each  and  all  might  well  belong : 
It  is  the  Spirit  of  Paradise 
That  prompts  such  work,  a  Spirit  strong, 
That  gives  to  all  the  self -same  bent 
Where  life  is  wise  and  innocent." 

It  is  not  only  in  tenderness  but  in  dignity  that  the 
"  wise  and  innocent "  are  wont  to  be  at  one.  Strong  in 
tranquillity,  they  can  intervene  amid  great  emotions  with 
a  master's  voice,  and  project  on  the  storm  of  passion  the 
clear  light  of  their  unchanging  calm.  And  thus  it  was 
that  the  study  of  Virgil,  and  especially  of  Virgil's  solemn 
picture  of  the  Underworld,  prompted  in  Wordsworth's 
mind  the  most  majestic  of  his  poems,  his  one  great  utter- 
ance on  heroic  love. 

He  had  as  yet  written  little  on  any  such  topic  as  this. 
At  Goslar  he  had  composed  the  poems  on  Lucy  to  which 
allusion  has  already  been  made.  And  after  his  happy 
marriage  he  had  painted  in  one  of  the  best  known  of  his 
poems  the  sweet  transitions  of  wedded  love,  as  it  moves  on 
from  the  first  shock  and  agitation  of  the  encounter  of  pre- 
destined souls  through  all  tendernesses  of  intimate  affection 
into  a  pervading  permanency  and  calm.  Scattered,  more- 
over, throughout  his  poems  are  several  passages  in  which 


IX.  J  "LAODAMIA."  113 

the  passion  is  treated  with  similar  force  and  truth.  The 
poem  which  begins  "  'Tis  said  that  some  have  died  for 
love"  depicts  the  enduring  poignancy  of  bereavement 
with  an  "  iron  pathos  "  that  is  almost  too  strong  for  art. 
And  something  of  the  same  power  of  clinging  attachment 
is  shown  in  the  sonnet  where  the  poet  is  stung  with  the 
thought  that  "even  for  the  least  division  of  an  hour"  he 
has  taken  pleasure  in  the  life  around  him,  without  the 
accustomed  tacit  reference  to  one  who  has  passed  away. 
There  is  a  brighter  touch  of  constancy  in  that  other  son- 
net where,  after  letting  his  fancy  play  over  a  glad  imagi- 
nary past,  he  turns  to  his  wife,  ashamed  that  even  in  so 
vague  a  vision  he  could  have  shaped  for  himself  a  soli- 
tary joy : 

"  Let  her  be  comprehended  in  the  frame 
Of  these  illusions,  or  they  please  no  more." 

In  later  years  the  two  sonnets  on  his  wife's  picture  set 
on  that  love  the  consecration  of  faithful  age;  and  there 
are  those  who  can  recall  his  look  as  he  gazed  on  the  pict- 
ure and  tried  to  recognize  in  that  aged  face  the  Beloved 
who  to  him  was  ever  young  and  fair — a  look  as  of  one 
dwelling  in  life-long  affections  with  the  unquestioning  sin- 
gle-heartedness of  a  child. 

And  here  it  might  have  been  thought  that  as  his  expe- 
rience ended,  his  power  of  description  would  have  ended 
too.  But  it  was  not  so.  Under  the  powerful  stimulus  of 
the  sixth  ^neid — allusions  to  which  pervade  Laodamia} 
throughout — with  unusual  labour,  and  by  a  strenuous  ef- 
fort of  the  imagination,  Wordsworth  was  enabled  to  depict 

*  Laodamia  should  be  read  (as  it  is  given  in  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's 
admirable  volume  of  selections)  with  the  earlier  conclusion  :  the  sec- 
mid  form  is  less  satisfactory ;  and  the  third,  with  its  sermonizing 
tone, "  thus  all  in  vain  exhorted  and  reproved,"  is  worst  of  all. 


114  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

his  own  love  in  excelsisy  to  imagine  what  aspect  it  might 
have  worn,  if  it  had  been  its  destiny  to  deny  itself  at  some 
heroic  call,  and  to  confront  with  nobleness  an  extreme 
emergency,  and  to  be  victor  (as  Plato  has  it)  in  an  Olym- 
pian contest  of  the  soul.  For,  indeed,  the  "  fervent,  not 
ungovernable,  love,"  which  is  the  ideal  that  Protesilaus  is 
sent  to  teach,  is  on  a  great  scale  the  same  affection  which 
we  have  been  considering  in  domesticity  and  peace ;  it  is 
love  considered  not  as  a  revolution  but  as  a  consummation ; 
as  a  self-abandonment  not  to  a  laxer  but  to  a  sterner  law ; 
no  longer  as  an  invasive  passion,  but  as  the  deliberate 
habit  of  the  sodl.  It  is  that  conception  of  love  which 
springs  into  being  in  the  last  canto  of  Dante's  Purga- 
tory— which  finds  in  English  chivalry  a  noble  voice — 

"  I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much, 
Loved  I  not  honour  more." 

For,  indeed  (even  as  Plato  says  that  Beauty  is  the  splen- 
dour of  Truth),  so  such  a  Love  as  this  is  the  splendour  of 
Virtue ;  it  is  the  unexpected  spark  that  flashes  from  self- 
forgetful  soul  to  soul,  it  is  man's  standing  evidence  that 
he  "must  lose  himself  to  find  himself,"  and  that  only 
when  the  veil  of  his  personality  has  lifted  from  around 
him  can  he  recognize  that  he  is  already  in  heaven. 

In  a  second  poem  inspired  by  this  revived  study  of 
classical  antiquity  Wordsworth  has  traced  the  career  of 
Dion  —  the  worthy  pupil  of  Plato,  the  philosophic  ruler 
of  Syracuse,  who  allowed  himself  to  shed  blood  unjustly, 
though  for  the  public  good,  and  was  haunted  by  a  spectre 
symbolical  of  this  fatal  error.  At  last  Dion  was  assassi- 
nated, and  the  words  in  which  the  poet  tells  his  fate  seem 
to  me  to  breathe  the  very  triumph  of  philosophy,  to  paint 
with  a  touch  the  greatness  of  a  spirit  which  makes  of 


1X.J  ''LAODAMIA."  115 

Death  himself  a  deliverer,  and  has  its  strength  in  the  un- 
seen— 

"So  were  the  hopeless  troubles,  that  involved 
The  soul  of  Dion,  instantly  dissolved." 

I  can  only  compare  these  lines  to  that  famous  passage  of 
Sophocles  where  the  lamentations  of  the  dying  (Edipus 
are  interrupted  by  the  impatient  summons  of  an  unseen 
accompanying  god.  In  both  places  the  effect  is  the  same — 
to  present  to  us  with  striking  brevity  the  contrast  between 
the  visible  and  the  invisible  presences  that  may  stand  about 
a  man's  last  hour;  for  he  may  feel  with  the  desolate 
CEdipus  that  "  all  I  am  has  perished  " — he  may  sink  like 
Dion  through  inextricable  sadness  to  a  disastrous  death, 
and  then  in  a  moment  the  transitory  shall  disappear  and 
the  essential  shall  be  made  plain,  and  from  Dion's  upright 
spirit  the  perplexities  shall  vanish  away,  and  (Edipus,  in 
the  welcome  of  that  unknown  companionship,  shall  find 
his  expiations  over  and  his  reward  begun. 

It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  when  Wordsworth  wrote  these 
poems  he  had  lost  something  of  the  young  inimitable 
charm  which  fills  such  pieces  as  the  Fountain  or  the  Soli- 
tary Reaper.  His  language  is  majestic,  but  it  is  no  longer 
magical.  JXnd  yet  we  cannot  but  feel  that  he  has  put 
into  these  poems  something  which  he  could  not  have 
put  into  the  poems  which  preceded  them ;  that  they  bear 
the  impress  of  a  soul  which  has  added  moral  effort  to 
poetic  inspiration,  and  is  mistress  now  of  the  acquired  as 
well  as  of  the  innate  virtue.  For  it  is  words  like  these 
that  are  the  strength  and  stay  of  men  ;  nor  can  their  ac- 
cent of  lofty  earnestness  be  simulated  by  the  writer's  art. 
Literary  skill  may  deceive  the  reader  who  seeks  a  literary 
pleasure  alone ;  and  he  to  whom  these  strong  consolations 
are  a  mere  imaginative  luxury  may  be  uncertain  or  indif- 
6 


116  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

ferent  out  of  what  heart  they  come.  But  those  who  need 
them  know ;  spirits  that  hunger  after  righteousness  dis- 
cern their  proper  food;  there  is  no  fear  lest  they  con- 
found the  sentimental  and  superficial  with  those  weighty 
utterances  of  moral  truth  which  are  the  most  precious  leg- 
acy that  a  man  can  leave  to  mankind. 

Thus  far,  then,  I  must  hold  that,  although  much  of 
grace  had  already  vanished,  there  was  on  the  whole  a 
progress  and  elevation  in  the  mind  of  him  of  whom  we 
treat.  But  the  culminating  point  is  here.  After  this — 
whatever  ripening  process  may  have  been  at  work  unseen 
— what  is  chiefly  visible  is  the  slow  stiffening  of  the  im- 
aginative power,  the  slow  withdrawal  of  the  insight  into 
the  soul  of  things,  and  a  descent — a3\r])(p6g  /ia\a  toIoq — 
"  soft  as  soft  can  be,"  to  the  euthanasy  of  a  death  that 
was  like  sleep. 

The  impression  produced  by  Wordsworth's  reperusal 
of  Virgil  in  1814-16  was  a  deep  and  lasting  one.  In 
1829-30  he  devoted  much  time  and  labour  to  a  transla- 
tion of  the  first  three  books  of  the  u^neid,  and  it  is  in- 
teresting to  note  the  gradual  modification  of  his  views  as 
to  the  true  method  of  rendering  poetry. 

"  I  have  long  been  persuaded,"  he  writes  to  Lord  Lons- 
dale in  1829,  "that  Milton  formed  his  blank  verse  upon 
the  model  of  the  Georgics  and  the  uSneid,  and  I  am  so 
much  struck  with  this  resemblance,  that  I  should  have 
attempted  Virgil  in  blank  verse,  had  I  not  been  persuaded 
that  no  ancient  author  can  with  advantage  be  so  rendered. 
Their  religion,  their  warfare,  their  course  of  action  and 
feeling  are  too  remote  from  modern  interest  to  allow  it. 
We  require  every  possible  help  and  attraction  of  sound 
in  our  language  to  smooth  the  way  for  the  admission  of 
things  so   remote  from  our  present  concerns.     My  owg 


IX.]  "LAODAMIA."  117 

notion  of  translation  is,  that  it  cannot  be  too  literal,  pro- 
vided these  faults  be  avoided :  baldness^  in  which  I  include 
all  that  takes  from  dignity ;  and  strangeness,  or  uncouth- 
ness,  including  harshness ;  and  lastly,  attempts  to  convey 
meanings  which,  as  they  cannot  be  given  but  by  languid 
circumlocutions,  cannot  in  fact  be  said  to  be  given  at 
all.  .  .  .  I  feel  it,  however,  to  be  too  probable  that  my 
translation  is  deficient  in  ornament,  because  I  must  un- 
avoidably have  lost  many  of  Virgil's,  and  have  never  with- 
out reluctance  attempted  a  compensation  of  my  own." 

The  truth  of  this  last  self-criticism  is  very  apparent 
from  the  fragments  of  the  translation  which  were  publish- 
ed in  the  Philological  Museum  ;  and  Coleridge,  to  whom 
the  whole  manuscript  was  submitted,  justly  complains  of 
finding  "  page  after  page  without  a  single  brilliant  note ;" 
and  adds,  *'  Finally,  my  conviction  is  that  you  undertake 
an  impossibility,  and  that  there  is  no  medium  between  a 
pure  version  and  one  on  the  avowed  principle  of  compen- 
sation in  the  widest  sense,  i.e.^  manner,  genius,  total  effect ; 
I  confine  myself  to  Virgil  when  I  say  this."  And  it  ap- 
pears that  Wordsworth  himself  came  round  to  this  view, 
for,  in  reluctantly  sending  a  specimen  of  his  work  to  the 
Philological  Museum  in  1832,  he  says: 

"Having  been  displeased  in  modern  translations  with  the  addi- 
tions of  incongruous  matter,  I  began  to  translate  with  a  resolve  to 
keep  clear  of  that  fault  by  adding  nothing ;  but  I  became  convinced 
that  a  spirited  translation  can  scarcely  be  accomplished  in  the  Eng- 
lish language  without  admitting  a  principle  of  compensation." 

There  is  a  curious  analogy  between  the  experiences  of 
Cowper  and  Wordsworth  in  the  way  of  translation. 
Wordsworth's  translation  of  Virgil  was  prompted  by  the 
same  kind  of  reaction  against  the  reckless  laxity  of  Dry- 
den  as  that  which  inspired  Cowper  against  the  distorting 


118  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

artificiality  of  Pope.  In  each  case  the  new  translator  cared 
more  for  his  author,  and  took  a  much  higher  view  of  a 
translator's  duty,  than  his  predecessor  had  done.  But  in 
each  case  the  plain  and  accurate  translation  was  a  failure, 
while  the  loose  and  ornate  one  continued  to  be  admired. 
We  need  not  conclude  from  this  that  the  wilful  inaccu- 
racy of  Pope  or  Dryden  would  be  any  longer  excusable  in 
such  a  work.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  may  certainly 
feel  that  nothing  is  gained  by  rendering  an  ancient  poet 
into  verse  at  all  unless  that  verse  be  of  a  quality  to  give  a 
pleasure  independent  of  the  faithfulness  of  the  translation 
which  it  conveys. 

The  translations  and  Laodamia  are  not  the  only  indica- 
tions of  the  influence  which  Virgil  exercised  over  Words- 
worth. Whether  from  mere  similarity  of  feeling,  or  from 
more  or  less  conscious  recollection,  there  are  frequent  pas- 
sages in  the  English  which  recall  the  Roman  poet.  Who 
can  hear  Wordsworth  describe  how  a  poet  on  the  island  in 

Grasmere 

"  At  noon 

Spreads  out  his  limbs,  while,  yet  unshorn,  the  sheep, 

Panting  beneath  the  burthen  of  their  wool, 

Lie  round  him,  even  as  if  they  were  a  part 

Of  his  own  household  " — 

and  not  think  of  the  stately  tenderness  of  VirgiPs 

"  Stant  et  oves  circum ;  nostri  nee  poenitet  illas," 

and  the  flocks  of  Arcady  that  gather  round  in  sympathy 
with  the  lovelorn  Gallus'  woe  ? 
So,  again,  the  well-known  lines — 

"  Not  seldom,  clad  in  radiant  vest, 
Deceitfully  goes  forth  the  Mom ; 
Not  seldom  Evening  in  the  west 
Sinks  smiUngly  forsworn  " — 


K.]  "LAODAMIA."  119 

are  almost  a  translation  of  Palinurus'  remonstrance  with 
**tlie  treachery  of  tranquil  heaven."  And  when  the  poet 
wishes  for  any  link  which  could  bind  him  closer  to  the 
Highland  maiden  who  has  flitted  across  his  path  as  a  be- 
ing of  a  different  world  from  his  own — 

"  Thine  elder  Brother  would  I  be, 
Thy  Father,  anything  to  thee  !" — 

we  hear  the  echo  of  the  sadder  plaint — 

"  Atque  utinam  e  vobis  unus  " — 

when  the  Roman  statesman  longs  to  be  made  one  with  the 
simple  life  of  shepherd  or  husbandman,  and  to  know  their 
undistracted  joy. 

Still  more  impressive  is  the  shock  of  surprise  with  which 
we  read  in  Wordsworth's  poem  on  Ossian  the  following 

lines : 

"  Musseus,  stationed  with  his  lyre 

Supreme  among  the  Elysian  quire, 
Is,  for  the  dwellers  upon  earth, 
Mute  as  a  lark  ere  morning's  birth," 

and  perceive  that  he  who  wrote  them  has  entered — where 
no  commentator  could  conduct  him — into  the  solemn  pa- 
thos of  Virgil's  MuscBum  ante  omnis ;  where  the  singer 
whose  very  existence  upon  earth  has  become  a  legend  and 
a  mythic  name  is  seen  keeping  in  the  underworld  his  old 
pre-eminence,  and  towering  above  the  blessed  dead. 

''his  is  a  stage  in  Wordsworth's  career  on  which  his 
biographer  is  tempted  unduly  to  linger.  For  we  have 
reached  the  Indian  summer  of  his  genius;  it  can  still 
shine  at  moments  bright  as  ever,  and  with  even  a  new 
majesty  and  calm ;  but  we  feel,  nevertheless,  that  the  mel- 
ody is  dying  from  his  song ;  that  he  is  hardening  into  self- 
repetition,  into  rhetoric,  into  sermonizing  common -place, 


120  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

and  is  rigid  where  he  was  once  profound.  The  Thanks- 
giving Ode  (1816)  strikes  death  to  the  heart.  The  accus- 
tomed patriotic  sentiments — the  accustomed  virtuous  as-^ 
pirations — these  are  still  there ;  but  the  accent  is  like  that 
of  a  ghost  who  calls  to  us  in  hollow  mimicry  of  a  voice 
that  once  we  loved. 

And  yet  Wordsworth's  poetic  life  was  not  to  close  with- 
out a  great  symbolical  spectacle,  a  solemn  farewell.  Sun- 
set among  the  Cumbrian  hills,  often  of  remarkable  beauty, 
once  or  twice,  perhaps,  in  a  score  of  years,  reaches  a  pitch 
of  illusion  and  magnificence  which  indeed  seems  nothing 
less  than  the  commingling  of  earth  and  heaven.  Such  a 
sight — seen  from  Rydal  Mount  in  1818  —  afforded  once 
more  the  needed  stimulus,  and  evoked  that  "  Evening  Ode, 
composed  on  an  evening  of  extraordinary  splendour  and 
beauty,^  which  is  the  last  considerable  production  of 
Wordsworth's  genius.  In  this  ode  we  recognize  the  ''^- 
cuiiar  gift  of  reproducing  with  magical  simplicity,  »  ,  St 
were,  the  inmost  virtue  of  natural  phenomena. 

"No  sound  is  uttered,  but  a  deep 

And  solemn  harmony  pervades 
The  hollow  vale  from  steep  to  steep, 

And  penetrates  the  glades. 
Far  distant  images  draw  nigh, 
Called  forth  by  wondrous  potency 
Of  beamy  radiance,  that  imbues 
Whate'er  it  strikes,  with  gem-like  hues ! 

In  vision  exquisitely  clear 
Herds  range  along  the  mountain  side ; 
And  glistening  antlers  are  descried, 

And  gilded  flocks  appear." 

Once  more  the  poet  brings  home  to  us  that  sense  of  be- 
longing at  once  to  two  worlds,  which  gives  to  human  life 
so  much  of  mysterious  solemnity. 


IX.]  "EVENING  ODE."  /  121 

"  Wings  at  my  shoulder  seem  to  play ; 
But,  rooted  here,  I  stand  and  gaze 
On  those  bwght  steps  that  heavenward  raise 
Their  practicable  way." 

And  the  poem  ends  —  with  a  deep  personal  pathos  —  in 
an  allusion,  repeated  from  the  Ode  on  Immortality ^  to  the 
light  which  "  lay  about  him  in  his  infancy  " — the  light 

"  Full  early  lost,  and  fruitlessly  deplored ; 

Which  at  this  moment,  on  my  waking  sight 
Appears  to  shine,  by  miracle  restored ! 

My  soul,  though  yet  confined  to  earth, 
Rejoices  in  a  second  birth ; 
— 'Tis  past,  the  visionary  splendour  fades ; 
And  night  approaches  with  her  shades." 

For  those  to  whom  the  mission  of  Wordsworth  appears 
before  all  things  as  a  religious  one  there  is  somethhig  sol- 
emn in  the  spectacle  of  the  seer  standing  at  the  close  of 
his  own  apocalypse,  with  the  consciousness  that  the  stif- 
fening brain  would  never  permit  him  to  drink  again  that 
overflowing  sense  of  glory  and  revelation — never,  till  he 
should  drink  it  new  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  He  lived,  in 
fact,  through  another  generation  of  men,  but  the  vision 
came  to  him  no  more ; 

"  Or  if  some  vestige  of  those  gleams 
Survived,  'twas  only  in  his  dreams." 

We  look  on  a  man's  life  for  the  most  part  as  forming 
in  itself  a  completed  drama.  We  love  to  see  the  interest 
maintained  to  the  close,  the  pathos  deepened  at  the  de- 
parting hour.  To  die  on  the  same  day  is  the  prayer  of 
lovers ;  to  vanish  at  Trafalgar  is  the  ideal  of  heroic  souls. 
And  yet  —  so  wide  and  various  are  the  issues  of  life — 
there  is  a  solemnity  as  profound  in  a  quite  different  lotj 


122  WORDSWORTH.  [chap.  ix. 

for  if  we  are  moving  among  eternal  emotions  we  should 
have  time  to  bear  witness  that  they  are  eternal.  Even 
Love  left  desolate  may  feel  with  a  proud  triumph  that  it 
could  never  have  rooted  itself  so  immutably  amid  the  joys 
of  a  visible  return  as  it  can  do  through  the  constancies  of 
bereavement,  and  the  life-long  memory  which  is  a  life-long 
hope.  And  Vision,  Revelation,  Ecstasy  —  it  is  not  only 
while  these  are  kindling  our  way  that  we  should  speak  of 
them  to  men,  but  rather  when  they  have  passed  from  us 
and  left  us  only  their  record  in  our  souls,  whose  perma- 
nence confirms  the  fiery  finger  which  wrote  it  long  ago. 
For  as  the  Greeks  would  end  the  first  drama  of  a  trilogy 
with  a  hush  of  concentration,  and  with  declining  notes  of 
calm,  so  to  us  the  narrowing  receptivity  and  persistent 
steadfastness  of  age  suggest  not  only  decay  but  expect- 
ancy, and  not  death  so  much  as  sleep ;  or  seem,  as  it 
were,  the  beginning  of  operations  which  are  not  measured 
by  our  hurrying  time,  nor  tested  by  any  achievement  to 
be  accomplished  here. 


CHAPTER  X. 

NATURAL    RELIGION. 

It  will  have  been  obvious  from  the  preceding  pages,  as 
well  as  from  the  tone  of  other  criticisms  on  Wordsworth, 
that  his  exponents  are  not  content  to  treat  his  poems  on 
nature  simply  as  graceful  descriptive  pieces,  but  speak  of 
him  in  terms  usually  reserved  for  the  originators  of  some 
great  religious  movement.  "  The  very  image  of  Words- 
worth," says  De  Quincey,  for  instance,  "  as  I  prefigured  it 
to  my  own  planet-struck  eye,  crushed  my  faculties  as  be- 
fore Elijah  or  St.  Paul."  How  was  it  that  poems  so  sim- 
ple in  outward  form  that  the  reviewers  of  the  day  classed 
them  with  the  Song  of  Sixpence^  or  at  best  with  the  Bahes 
in  the  Wood,  could  affect  a  critic  like  De  Quincey — I  do 
not  say  with  admiration,  but  with  this  exceptional  sense 
of  revelation  and  awe  ? 

The  explanation  of  this  anomaly  lies,  as  is  well  known, 
in  something  new  and  individual  in  the  way  in  which 
Wordsworth  regarded  nature;  something  more  or  less 
discernible  in  most  of  his  works,  and  redeeming  even 
some  of  the  slightest  of  them  from  insignificance,  while 
conferring  on  the  more  serious  and  sustained  pieces  an 
importance  of  a  different  order  from  that  which  attaches 
to  even  the  most  brilliant  productions  of  his  contempo- 
raries. To  define  with  exactness,  however,  what  was  this 
I      6*  22 


124  WORDSWORTH.  [J^i^ 

new  element  imported  by  our  poet  into  man's  view  of 
nature  is  far  from  easy,  and  requires  some  brief  consider- 
ation of  the  attitude  in  tbis  respect  of  bis  predecessors. 

There  is  j>o  mucb  in  the  external  world  wbicb  is  terri- 
ble or  unfriendly  to  man,  that  the  first  impression  made  on 
him  by  Nature  as  a  whole,  even  in  temperate  climates,  is 
usually  that  of  awfulness ;  his  admiration  being  reserved 
for  the  fragments  of  her  which  he  has  utilized  for  his  own 
purposes,  or  adorned  with  his  own  handiwork.  When 
Homer  tells  us  of  a  place 

"  Where  even  a  god  might  gaze,  and  stand  apart, 
And  feel  a  wondering  rapture  at  the  heart," 

It  is  of  no  prospect  of  sea  or  mountain  that  he  is  speat 
ing,  but  of  a  garden  where  everything  is  planted  in  rows, 
and  there  is  a  never-ending  succession  of  pears  and  figs. 
These  gentler  aspects  of  nature  will  have  their  minor 
deities  to  represent  them ;  but  the  men,  of  whatever  race 
they  be,  whose  minds  are  most  absorbed  in  the  problems 
of  man's  position  and  destiny  will  tend  for  the  most  part 
to  some  sterner  and  more  overwhelming  conception  of  the 
sum  of  things.  "  Lord,  what  is  man,  that  thou  art  mind- 
ful of  him  ?"  is  the  cry  of  Hebrew  piety  as  well  as  of  mod- 
ern science ;  and  the  "  majestas  cognita  rerum  " — the  rec- 
ognized majesty  of  the  universe — teaches  Lucretius  only 
the  indifference  of  gods  and  the  misery  of  men. 

But  in  a  well-known  passage,  in  which  Lucretius  is 
honoured  as  he  deserves,  we  find,  nevertheless,  a  different 
view  hinted,  with  an  impressiveness  which  it  had  hardly 
acquired  till  then.  W'^  find  Virgil  implying  that  scien- 
tific knowledge  of  Nature  may  not  be  the  only  way  oi 
arriving  at  the  truth  about  her ;  that  her  loveliness  is  also 
a  revelation,  and  that  the  soul  which  is  in  unison  with  her 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  126 

is  justified  by  its  own  peace.  This  is  the  very  substance 
of  The  PoeCs  Epitaph  also ;  of  the  poem  in  which  Words- 
worth at  the  beginning  of  his  career  describes  himself  as 
he  continued  till  its  close — the  poet  who  "  murmurs  near 
the  running  brooks  a  music  sweeter  than  their  own" — 
who  scorns  the  man  of  science  "  who  would  peep  and 
botanize  upon  his  mother's  grave." 

"  The  outward  shows  of  sky  and  earth, 
Of  hill  and  valley,  he  has  viewed ; 
And  impulses  of  deeper  birth 
Have  come  to  him  in  solitude. 

"  In  common  things  that  round  us  lie 
Some  random  truths  he  can  impart— 
The  harvest  of  a  quiet  eye 
That  broods  and  sleeps  on  his  own  heart. 

"  But  he  is  weak,  both  man  and  boy, 
Hath  been  an  idler  in  the  land  ; 
Contented  if  he  might  enjoy 
The  things  which  others  understand." 

Like  much  else  in  the  literature  of  imperial  Rome,  the 
passage  in  the  second  Georgic,  to  which  I  have  referred, 
is  in  its  essence  more  modern  than  the  Middle  Ages. 
Mediaeval  Christianity  involved  a  divorce  from  the  nature 
around  us,  as  well  as  from  the  nature  within.  With  the 
rise  of  the  modem  spirit  delight  in  the  external  world  re- 
turns; and  from  Chaucer  downwards  through  the  whole 
course  of  English  poetry  are  scattered  indications  of  a 
mood  which  draws  from  visible  things  an  intuition  of 
things  not  seen.  When  Withers,  in  words  which  Words- 
worth has  fondly  quoted,  says  of  his  muse : 

"By  the  murmur  of  a  spring, 
Or  the  least  bough's  rustelling ; 


126  WORDSWORTH.  [Chap. 

By  a  daisy  whose  leaves  spread, 
Shut  when  Titan  goes  to  bed ; 
Or  a  shady  bush  or  tree — 
She  could  more  infuse  in  me 
Than  all  Nature's  beauties  can 
In  some  other  wiser  man  " — 

he  felt  already,  as  Wordsworth  after  him,  that  Nature  is  no 
mere  collection  of  phenomena,  but  infuses  into  her  least 
approaches  some  sense  of  her  mysterious  whole. 

Passages  like  this,  however,  must  not  be  too  closely 
pressed.  The  mystic  element  in  English  literature  has 
run  for  the  most  part  into  other  channels ;  and  when,  af- 
ter Pope's  reign  of  artificiality  and  convention,  attention 
was  redirected  to  the  phenomena  of  Nature  by  Collins, 
Beattie,  Thomson,  Crabbe,  Cowper,  Burns,  and  Scott,  it 
was  in  a  spirit  of  admiring^-observatian  rather  than  of 
an  intimate  worship.  Sometimes,  as  for  the  most  part  in 
Thomson,  we  have  mere  picturesqueness — a  reproduction 
of  Nature  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  reproducing  her  —  a 
kind  of  stock-taking  of  her  habitual  effects.  Or  some- 
times, as  in  Burns,  we  have  a  glowing  spirit  which  looks 
on  Nature  with  a  side  glance,  and  uses  her  as  an  accessory 
to  the  expression  of  human  love  and  woe.  Cowper  some- 
times contemplated  her  as  a  whole,  but  only^  as  affording 
a  proof  of  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  a  personal  Creator. 

To  express  what  is  characteristic  in  Wordsworth  we 
must  recur  to  a  more  generalized  conception  of  the  rela^^ 
tions  between  the  njitural  and  the  spiritual  worlds.  We 
must  say  with  Plato — the  lawgiver  of  all  subsequent  ide- 
alists —  that  the  unknown  realities  around  us,  which  the 
philosopher  apprehends  by  the  contemplation  of  abstract 
truth,  become  in  various  ways  obscurely  perceptible  to 
men  under  the  influence  of  "  divine  madness " — of  an 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  127 

enthusiasm  which  is  in  fact  inspiration.  And  further, 
giving,  as  he  so  often  does,  a  half  -  fanciful  expression  to 
a  substance  of  deep  meaning,  Plato  distinguishes  four 
kinds  of  this  enthusiasm.  There  is  the  prophet's  glow 
of  revelation  ;  and  the  prevailing  prayer  which  averts  the 
wrath  of  heaven ;  and  that  philosophy  which  enters,  so  to 
say,  unawares  into  the  poet  through  his  art,  and  into  the 
lover  through  his  love.  Each  of  these  stimuli  may  so 
exalt  the  inward  faculties  as  to  make  a  man  evdeog  Kai 
tKcppiav — "  bereft  of  reason,  but  filled  with  divinity  " — per- 
cipient of  an  intelligence  other  and  larger  than  his  own. 
To  this  list  Wordsworth  tas  made  an  important  addition. 
He  has  shown  by  his  example  and  writings  that  the  con- 
templation  of  Nature  may  become  a  stimulus  as  inspiring 
asjtoe ;  may  enable  us  " to  see  into  the  life  of  things" 
— as  far,  perhaps,  as  beatific  vision  or  prophetic  rapture 
can  attain.  Assertions  so  impalpable  as  these  must  jus- 
tify themselves  by  subjective  evidence.  He  who  claims 
to  give  a  message  must  satisfy  us  that  he  has  himself  re- 
ceived it ;  and,  inasmuch  as  transcendent  things  are  in 
themselves  inexpressible,  he  must  convey  to  ua  in  hints 
and  figures  the  conviction  which  we  need.  I'rayer  may 
bring  the  spiritual  world  near  to  us ;  but  when  the  eyes 
of  the  kneeling  Dominic  seem  to  say  "/o  son  venuto  a 
questo,^''  their  look  must  persuade  us  that  the  life  of  wor- 
ship has  indeed  attained  the  reward  of  vision.  Art,  too, 
may  be  inspired ;  but  the  artist,  in  whatever  field  he 
works,  must  have  "  such  a  mastery  of  his  mystery  "  that 
the  fabric  of  his  imagination  stands  visible  in  its  own 
light  before  our  eyes — 

"  Seeing  it  is  built 
Of  music ;  therefore  never  built  at  all, 
And  therefore  built  for  ever." 


128  WORDSWORTH.  ,  [chap. 

Love  may  open  heaven  ;  but  when  the  lover  would  invite 
ns  "  thither,  where  are  the  eyes  of  Beatrice,"  he  must  make 
us  feel  that  his  individual  passion  is  indeed  part  and  par- 
cel of  that  love  "  which  moves  the  sun  and  the  other  stars." 
And  so  also  with  Wordsworth.  Unless  the  words  which 
describe  the  intense  and  sympathetic  gaze  with  which  he 
contemplates  Nature  convince  us  of  the  reality  of  "  the 
light  which  never  was  on  sea  or  land  " — of  the  "  Presence 
which  disturbs  him  with  the  joy  of  elevated  thoughts  " — 
of  the  authentic  vision  of  those  hours 

"  When  the  light  of  sense 
Goes  out,  but  with  a  flash  that  has  revealed 
The  invisible  world ;" 

unless  his  tone  awakes  a  responsive  conviction  in  our- 
selves, there  is  no  argument  by  which  he  can  prove  to  us 
that  he  is  offering  a  new  insight  to  mankind.  Yet,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  need  not  be  unreasonable  to  see  in  his 
message  something  more  than  a  mere  individual  fancy. 
It  seems,  at  least,  to  be  closely  correlated  with  those  oth- 
er messages  of  which  we  have  spoken — those  other  cases 
where  some  original  element  of  our  nature  is  capable  of 
being  regarded  as  an  inlet  of  mystic  truth.  For  in  each 
of  these  complex  aspects  of  religion  we  see,  perhaps,  the 
modification  of  a  primeval  instinct.  There  is  a  point  of 
view  from  which  Revelation  seems  to  be  but  transfigured 
Sorcery,  and  Love  transfigured  Appetite,  and  Philosophy 
man's  ordered  Wonder,  and  Prayer  his  softening  Fear. 
And  similarly,  in  the  natural  religion  of  Wordsworth  we 
may  discern  the  modified  outcome  of  other  human  im- 
pulses hardly  less  universal — of  those  instincts  which  led 
our  forefathers  to  people  earth  and  air  with  deities,  or  to 
vivify  the  whole  universe  with  a  single  soul.     In  this  view 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  12J» 

the  achievement  of  Wordsworth  was  of  a  kind  which  most 
of  the  moral  leaders  of  the  race  have  in  some  way  or  other 
performed.  It  was  that  he  turned  a  theology  back  again 
into  a  religion  ;  that  he  revived  in  a  higher  and  purer  form 
those  primitive  elements  of  reverence  for  Nature's  powers 
which  had  diffused  themselves  into  speculation,  or  crystal- 
lized into  mythology  ;  that  for  a  system  of  beliefs  about 
Nature,  which  paganism  had  allowed  to  become  grotesque 
— of  rites  which  had  become  unmeaning — he  substituted 
an  admiration  for  Nature  so  constant,  an  understanding  of 
her  so  subtle,  a  sympathy  so  profound,  that  they  became 
a  veritable  worship.  Such  worship,  I  repeat,  is  not  what 
we  commonly  imply  either  by  paganism  or  by  panthe- 
ism. For  in  pagan  countries,  though  the  gods  may  have 
originally  represented  natural  forces,  yet  the  conception  of 
them  soon  becomes  anthropomorphic,  and  they  are  rever- 
enced as  transcendent  men  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  pan- 
theism is  generally  characterized  by  an  indifference  to 
things  in  the  concrete,  to  Nature  in  detail ;  so  that  the 
Whole,  or  Universe,  with  which  the  Stoics  (for  instance) 
sought  to  be  in  harmony,  was  approached  not  by  contem- 
plating external  objects,  but  rather  by  ignoring  them. 

Yet  here  I  would  be  understood  to  speak  only  in  the 
most  general  manner.  So  congruous  in  all  ages  are  the 
aspirations  and  the  hopes  of  men  that  it  would  be  rash 
indeed  to  attempt  to  assign  the  moment  when  any  spirit- 
ual truth  rises  for  the  first  time  on  human  consciousness. 
But  thus  much,  I  think,  may  be  fairly  said,  that-jhe  max- 
ims_iifJSiirii_sw.orth's£arm_^Qf  natural  religion  were  uttered 
before^Wordswoith  only  in  the  sense  in  which  the  maxima 
of-Christianity  wera  uUered  before  Christ.  To  compare^ 
small  things  with  great — or,^  rather,  tocompare  great  things 
with  things  vastly  greater — the  essential  spirit  of  the  Linet 


130  WORDSWORTH.  Tchap. 

near  Tintern  Ahhey  was  for  practical  purposes  as  new  to 
mankind  as  the  essential  spirit  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount.  Not  the  isolated  expression  of  moral  ideas,  but 
their  fusion  into  a  whole  in  one  memorable  personality, 
is  that  which  connects  them  forever  with  a  single  name. 
Therefore  it  is  that  Wordsworth  is  venerated  ;  because  to 
so  many  men — indifferent,  it  may  be,  to  literary  or  poet- 
ical effects,  as  such — he  has_  shown  by  the  subtle  intensity 
of  his  own  emotion  how  the  contemplation  of  Nature  can 
be  made  a  revealing  agency,  like  Love  or  Prayer — an  open- 
ing, if  indeed  there  be  any  opening,  into  the  transcendent 
world. 

The  prophet  with  such  a  message  as  this  will,  of  course, 
appeal  for  the  most  part  to  the  experience  of  exception- 
al moments — those  moments  when  "  we  see  into  the  life 
of  things  ;"  when  the  face  of  Nature  sends  to  us  "  gleams 
like  the  flashing  of  a  shield  " — hours  such  as  those  of  the 
Solitary,  who,  gazing  on  the  lovely  distant  scene, 

"Would  gaze  till  it  became 
Far  lovelier,  and  his  heart  could  not  sustain 
The  beauty,  still  more  beauteous." 

But  the  idealist,  of  whatever  school,  is  seldom  content 
to  base  his  appeal  to  us  upon  these  scattered  intuitions 
alone.  There  is  a  whole  epoch  of  our  existence  whose 
memories,  differing,  indeed,  immensely  in  vividness  and 
importance  in  the  minds  of  different  men,  are  yet  suffi- 
ciently common  to  all  men  to  form  a  favourite  basis  for 
philosophical  argument.  "The  child  is  father  of  the 
man;"  and  through  the  recollection  and  observation  of 
early  childhood  we  may  hope  to  trace  our  ancestry — in 
heaven  above  or  on  the  earth  beneath — in  its  most  signifi- 
cant manifestation. 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  131 

It  is  to  the  wortings  of  the  mind  of  the  child  that  the 
philosopher  appeals  who  wishes  to  prove  that  knowledge 
is  recollection,  and  that  our  recognition  of  geometrical 
truths — so  prompt  as  to  appear  instinctive — depends  on 
our  having  been  actually  familiar  with  them  in  an  earlier 
world.  The  Christian  mystic  invokes  with  equal  confi- 
dence his  own  memories  of  a  state  which  seemed  as  yet  to 
know  no  sin : 

"  Happy  those  early  days,  when  I 
Shined  in  my  angel  infancy ! 
Before  I  understood  this  place 
Appointed  for  my  second  race, 
Or  taught  my  soul  to  fancy  aught 
But  a  white,  celestial  thought ; 
When  yet  I  had  not  walked  above 
A  mile  or  two  from  my  first  Love, 
And,  looking  back  at  that  short  space, 
Could  see  a  glimpse  of  His  bright  face ; 
When  on  some  gilded  cloud  or  flower 
My  gazing  soul  would  dwell  an  hour, 
And  in  those  weaker  glories  spy 
Some  shadows  of  eternity ; 
Before  I  taught  my  tongue  to  wound 
My  conscience  with  a  sinful  sound, 
Or  had  the  black  art  to  dispense 
A  several  sin  to  every  sense. 
But  felt  through  all  this  fleshly  dress 
Bright  shoots  of  everlastingness." 

And  Wordsworth,  whose  recollections  were  exceptional- 
ly vivid,  and  whose  introspection  was  exceptionally  pene- 
trating, has  drawn  from  his  own  childish  memories  philo- 
sophical lessons  which  are  hard  to  disentangle  in  a  logical 
statement,  but  which  will  roughly  admit  of  being  classed 
under  two  heads.  For,  firstly,  he  has  shown  an  unusual 
delicacy  of  analysis  in  eliciting  the  "  Urstboin  affinities  that 


132  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

fit  our  new  existence  to  existing  things" — in  tracing  the 
first  iiDpiict  oi  impressioiis  which  are  destined  to  give  the 
mind  its  earliest  ply,  or  even,  in  unreflecting  natures,  to  dc' 
termine  the  permanent  modes  of  thought.  And,  secondly, 
from  the  halo  of  pure  and  vivid  emotions  with  which  our 
childish  years  are  surrounded,  and  the  close  connexion  of 
this  emoti"n  with  external  nature,  which  it  glorifies  and 
transforms,  he  infers  that  the  soul  has  enjoyed  elsewhere 
an  existence  superior  to  that  of  earth,  but  an  existence  of 
which  external  nature  retains  for  a  time  the  power  of  re- 
minding her. 

The  first  of  these  lines  of  thought  may  be  illustrated  by 
a  passage  in  the  Prelude,  in  which  the  boy's  mind  is  repre- 
sented as  passing  through  precisely  the  train  of  emotion 
which  we  may  imagine  to  be  at  the  root  of  the  theology 
of  many  barbarous  peoples.  He  is  rowing  at  night  alone 
on  Esthwaite  Lake,  his  eyes  fixed  upon  a  ridge  of  crags, 
above  which  nothing  is  visible : 

"  I  dipped  my  oars  into  the  silent  lake, 
And  as  I  rose  upon  the  stroke  my  boat 
Went  heaving  through  the  water  like  a  swan ; 
When,  from  behind  that  craggy  steep  till  then 
The  horizon's  bound,  a  huge  peak,  black  and  huge, 
As  if  with  voluntary  power  instinct 
Upreared  its  head.     I  struck  and  struck  again ; 
And,  growing  still  in  stature,  the  grim  shape 
Towered  up  between  me  and  the  stars,  and  still, 
For  so  it  seemed,  with  purpose  of  its  own, 
And  measured  motion  like  a  living  thing. 
Strode  after  me.  -  With  trembling  oars  I  turned. 
And  through  the  silent  water  stole  my  way 
Back  to  the  covert  of  the  willow-tree  ; 
There  in  her  mooring-place  I  left  my  bark, 
And  through  the  meadows  homeward  went,  in  grave 
And  serious  mood.    But  after  I  had  seen 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  133 

That  spectacle,  for  many  days,  my  brain 
Worked  with  a  dim  and  undetermined  sense 
Of  unknown  modes  of  being ;  o'er  my  thoughts 
There  hung  a  darkness — call  it  solitude, 
Or  blank  desertion.     No  familiar  shapes 
Remained,  no  pleasant  images  of  trees, 
Of  sea,  or  sky,  no  colours  of  green  fields ; 
But  huge  and  mighty  forms,  that  do  not  live 
Like  living  men,  moved  slowly  thro'  the  mind 
By  day,  and  were  a  trouble  to  my  dreams." 

In  the  controversy  as  to  the  origin  of  the  worship  of 
inanimate  objects,  or  of  the  powers  of  Nature,  this  passage 
might  fairly  be  cited  as  an  example  of  the  manner  in  which 
those  objects,  or  those  powers,  can  impress  the  mind  with 
that  awe  which  is  the  foundation  of  savage  creeds,  while 
yet  they  are  not  identified  with  any  human  intelligence, 
such  as  the  spirits  of  ancestors  or  the  like,  nor  even  sup- 
posed to  operate  according  to  any  human  analogy. 

Up  to  this  point  Wordsworth's  reminiscences  may  seem 
simply  to  illustrate  the  conclusions  which  science  reaches 
by  other  roads.  But  he  is  not  content  with  merely  record- 
ing and  analyzing  his  childish  impressions  ;  he  implies,  or 
even  asserts,  that  these  "  fancies  from  afar  are  brought" — 
that  the  child's  view  of  the  world  reveals  to  him  truths 
which  the  man  with  difficulty  retains  or  recovers.  This  is 
not  the  usual  teaching  of  science,  yet  it  would  be  hard  to 
assert  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible.  The  child's  instincts 
may  well  be  supposed  to  partake  in  larger  measure  of  the 
general  instincts  of  the  race,  in  smaller  measure  of  the 
special  instincts  of  his  own  country  and  century,  than  is 
the  case  with  the  man.  Now  the  feelings  and  beliefs  of 
each  successive  century  will  probably  be,  on  the  whole, 
superior  to  those  of  any  previous  century.  But  this  is 
not  universally  true ;  the  teaching  of  each  generation  does 


134  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

not  thus  sum  up  the  results  of  the  whole  past.  And  thus 
the  child,  to  whom  in  a  certain  sense  the  past  of  humanity 
is  present  —  who  is  living  through  the  whole  life  of  the 
race  in  little,  before  he  lives  the  life  of  his  century  in  large 
— may  possibly  dimly  apprehend  something  more  of  truth 
in  certain  directions  than  is  visible  to  the  adults  around 
him. 

But,  thus  qualified,  the  intuitions  of  infancy  might  seem 
scarcely  worth  insisting  on.  And  Wordsworth,  as  is  well 
known,  has  followed  Plato  in  advancing  for  the  child  a 
much  bolder  claim.  The  child's  soul,  in  this  view,  has  ex- 
isted before  it  entered  the  body — has  existed  in  a  world 
superior  to  ours,  but  connected,  by  the  immanence  of  the 
same  pervading  Spirit,  with  the  material  universe  before 
our  eyes.  The  child  begins  by  feeling  this  material  world 
strange  to  him.  But  he  sees  in  it,  as  it  were,  what  he  has 
been  accustomed  to  see ;  he  discerns  in  it  its  kinship  with 
the  spiritual  world  which  he  dimly  remembers;  it  is  to 
him  "  an  unsubstantial  fairy  place  " — a  scene  at  once  bright- 
er and  more  unreal  than  it  will  appear  in  his  eyes  when  he 
has  become  acclimatized  to  earth.  And  even  when  this 
freshness  of  insight  has  passed  away,  it  occasionally  hap- 
pens that  sights  or  sounds  of  unusual  beauty  or  carrying 
deep  associations — a  rainbow,  a  cuckoo's  cay,  a  sunset  of 
extraordinary  splendour — will  renew  for  a  while  this  sense 
of  vision  and  nearness  to  the  spiritual  world  —  a  sense 
which  nevei'  loses  its  reality,  though  with  advancing  years 
its  presence  grows  briefer  and  more  rare. 

Such  then,  in  prosaic  statement,  is  the  most  characteristic 
message  of  Wordsworth.  And  it  is  to  be  noted  that  though 
Wordsworth  at  times  presents  it  as  a  coherent  theory,  yet 
it  is  not  necessarily  of  the  nature  of  a  theory,  nor  need  be 
accepted  or  rejected  as  a  whole ;  but  is  rather  an  inlet  of 


X]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  135 

illumining  emotion  in  which  different  minds  can  share  in 
the  measure  of  their  capacities  or  their  need.  There  are 
some  to  whom  childhood  brought  no  strange  vision  of 
brightness,  but  who  can  feel  their  communion  with  the 
Divinity  in  Nature  growing  with  the  growth  of  their  souls, 
There  are  others  who  might  be  unwilling  to  acknowledge 
any  spiritual  or  transcendent  source  for  the  elevating  joy 
which  the  contemplation  of  Nature  can  give,  but  who  feel, 
nevertheless,  that  to  that  joy  Wordsworth  has  been  their 
most  effective  guide.  A  striking  illustration  of  this  fact 
may  be  drawn  from  the  passage  in  which  John  Stuart  Mill, 
a  philosopher  of  a  very  different  school,  has  recorded  the 
influence  exercised  over  him  by  Wordsworth^s  poems,  read 
in  a  season  of  dejection,  when  there  seemed  to  be  no  real 
and  substantive  joy  in  life,  nothing  but  the  excitement  of 
the  struggle  with  the  hardships  and  injustices  of  human 
fates. 

"What  made  Wordsworth's  poems  a  medicine  for  my  state  of 
mind,"  he  says,  in  his  Autobiography,  "  was  that  they  expressed,  not 
mere  outward  beauty,  but  states  of  feeling,  and  of  thought  coloured 
by  feeling,  under  the  excitement  of  beauty.  They  seemed  to  be  the 
very  culture  of  the  feelings  which  I  was  in  quest  of.  In  them  I 
seemed  to  draw  from  a  source  of  inward  joy,  of  sympathetic  and  im- 
aginative pleasure,  which  could  be  shared  in  by  all  human  beings, 
which  had  no  connexion  with  struggle  or  imperfection,  but  would  be 
made  richer  by  every  improvement  in  the  physical  or  social  condition 
of  mankind.  From  them  I  seemed  to  learn  what  would  be  the  peren- 
nial sources  of  happiness,  when  all  the  greater  evils  of  life  shall  have 
been  removed.  And  I  felt  myself  at  once  better  and  happier  as  I 
came  under  their  influence.". 

Words  like  these,  proceeding  from  a  mind  so  different 
from  the  poet's  own,  form  perhaps  as  satisfactory  a  testi- 
mony to  the  value  of  his  work  as  any  writer  can  obtain : 


ISQ  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

for  they  imply  that  Wordsworth  has  succeeded  in  giving 
his  own  impress  to  emotions  which  may  become  common 
to  all ;  that  he  has  produced  a  body  of  thought  which  is 
felt  to  be  both  distinctive  and  coherent,  while  yet  it  en- 
larges the  reader's  capacities  instead  of  making  demands 
upon  his  credence.  Whether  there  be  theories,  they  shall 
pass ;  whether  there  be  systems,  they  shall  fail ;  the  true 
epoch-maker  in  the  history  of  the  human  soul  is  the  man 
wiio  educes  from  this  bewildering  universe  a  new  and  ele- 
vating joy. 

I  have  alluded  above  to  some  of  the  passages,  most  of 
them  familiar  enough,  in  which  Wordsworth's  sense  of 
the  mystic  relation  between  the  world  without  us  and  the 
world  within — the  correspondence  between  the  seen  and 
the  unseen — is  expressed  in  its  most  general  terms.  But 
it  is  evident  that  such  a  conviction  as  this,  if  it  contain  any 
truth,  cannot  be  barren  of  consequences  on  any  level  of 
thought.  The  communion  with  Nature  which  is  capable 
of  being  at  times  sublimed  to  an  incommunicable  ecstasy 
must  be  capable  also  of  explaining  Nature  to  us  so  far  as 
she  can  be  explained ;  there  must  be  axiomata  media  of 
natural  religion ;  there  must  be  something  in  the  nature 
of  poetic  truths,  standing  midway  between  mystic  intuition 
and  delicate  observation. 

How  rich  Wordsworth  is  in  these  poetic  truths — how 
illumining  is  the  gaze  which  he  turns  on  the  commonest 
phenomena — how  subtly  and  variously  he  shows  us  the 
soul's  innate  perceptions  or  inherited  memories,  as  it  were, 
co-operating  with  Nature  and  "half  creating"  the  voice 
with  which  she  speaks — all  this  can  be  learnt  by  attentive 
study  alone.  Only  a  few  scattered  samples  can  be  given 
here;  and  I  will  begin  with  one  on  whose  significance 
the  poet  has  himself  dwelt.     This  is  the  poem  called  The 


jr.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  137 

Leech- Gatherer y  afterwards  more  formally  named  Resolu' 
Hon  and  Independence. 

"  I  will  explain  to  you,"  says  Wordsworth,  "  in  prose, 
my  feelings  in  writing  that  poem.  I  describe  myself  as 
having  been  exalted  to  the  highest  pitch  of  delight  by  the 
joyousness  and  beauty  of  Nature ;  and  then  as  depressed, 
even  in  the  midst  of  those  beautiful  objects,  to  the  lowest 
dejection  and  despair.  A  young  poet  in  the  midst  of  the 
happiness  of  Nature  is  described  as  overwhelmed  by  the 
thoughts  of  the  miserable  reverses  which  have  befallen  the 
happiest  of  all  men,  viz.,  poets.  I  think  of  this  till  I  am 
so  deeply  impressed  with  it,  that  I  consider  the  manner  in 
which  I  am  rescued  from  my  dejection  and  despair  almost 
as  an  interposition  of  Providence.  A  person  reading  the 
poem  with  feelings  like  mine  will  have  been  awed  and 
controlled,  expecting  something  spiritual  or  supernatural. 
What  is  brought  forward  ?  A  lonely  place,  *  a  pond,  by 
which  an  old  man  was,  far  from  all  house  or  home :'  not 
stood,  nor  sat,  but  was — the  figure  presented  in  the  most 
naked  simplicity  possible.  The  feeling"^  of  spirituality  or 
supernaturalness  is  again  referred  to  as  being  strong  in  my 
mind  in  this  passage.  How  came  he  here  ?  thought  I,  or 
what  can  he  be  doing  ?  I  then  describe  him,  whether  ill 
or  well  is  not  for  me  to  judge  with  perfect  confidence; 
but  this  I  can  confidently  afiirm,  that  though  I  believe 
God  has  given  me  a  strong  imagination,  I  cannot  conceive 
a  figure  more  impressive  than  that  of  an  old  man  like  this, 
the  survivor  of  a  wife  and  ten  children,  travelling  alone 
among  the  mountains  and  all  lonely  places,  carrying  with 
him  his  own  fortitude,  and  the  necessities  which  an  unjust 
state  of  society  has  laid  upon  him.  You  speak  of  his 
speech  as  tedious.  Everything  is  tedious  when  one  does 
not  read  with  the  feelings  of  the  author.     The  Thorn  is 


138  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

tedious  to  hundreds ;  and  so  is  The  Idiot  Boy  to  hundreds. 
It  is  in  the  character  of  the  old  man  to  tell  his  story,  which 
an  impatient  reader  must  feel  tedious.  But,  good  heav- 
ens !  such  a  figure,  in  such  a  place ;  a  pious,  self-respecting, 
miserably  infirm  and  pleased  old  man,  telling  such  a  tale !" 

The  naive  earnestness  of  this  passage  suggests  to  us 
how  constantly  recurrent  in  Wordsworth's  mind  were  the 
two  trains  of  ideas  which  form  the  substance  of  the  poem ; 
the  interaction,  namely  (if  so  it  may  be  termed),  of  the 
moods  of  Nature  with  the  moods  of  the  human  mind; 
and  the  dignity  and  interest  of  man  as  man,  depicted  with 
no  complex  background  of  social  or  political  life,  but  set 
amid  the  primary  affections  and  sorrows,  and  the  wild 
aspects  of  the  external  world. 

Among  the  pictures  which  Wordsworth  has  left  us  of 
the  influence  of  Nature  on  human  character,  Peter  Bell 
may  be  taken  as  marking  one  end,  and  the  poems  on  Lucy 
the  other  end  of  the  scale.  Peter  Bell  lives  in  the  face 
of  Nature  untouched  alike  by  her  terror  and  her  charm ; 
Lucy's  whole  being  is  moulded  by  Nature's  self;  she  is 
responsive  to  sun  and  shadow,  to  silence  and  to  sound, 
and  melts  almost  into  an  impersonation  of  a  Cumbrian 
valley's  peace.  Between  these  two  extremes  how  many 
are  the  possible  shades  of  feeling !  In  Ruth,  for  instance, 
the  point  impressed  upon  us  is  that  Nature's  influence  is 
only  salutary  so  long  as  she  is  herself,  so  to  say,  in  keeping 
with  man ;  that  when  her  operations  reach  that  degree  of 
habitual  energy  and  splendour  at  which  our  love  for  her 
passes  into  fascination  and  our  admiration  into  bewilder- 
ment, then  the  fierce  and  irregular  stimulus  consorts  no 
longer  with  the  growth  of  a  temperate  virtue : 

"  The  wind,  the  tempest  roaring  high, 
The  tumult  of  a  tropic  sky. 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  189 

Might  well  be  dangerous  food 
For  him,  a  youth  to  whom  was  given 
So  much  of  earth,  so  much  of  heaven, 

And  such  impetuous  blood." 

And  a  contrasting  touch  recalls  the  healing  power  of 
those  gentle  and  familiar  presences  which  came  to  Ruth 
in  her  stormy  madness  with  visitations  of  momentary 
calm : 

"  Yet  sometimes  milder  hours  she  knew, 
Nor  wanted  sun,  nor  rain,  nor  dew, 

Nor  pastimes  of  the  May ; 
They  aU  were  with  her  in  her  cell ; 
And  a  wild  brook  with  cheerful  knell 
Did  o'er  the  pebbles  play." 

I  will  give  one  other  instance  of  this  subtle  method  of 
dealing  with  the  contrasts  in  nature.  It  is  from  the  poem 
entitled  ^^  Lines  left  upon  a  Seat  in  a  Yew- Tree  which 
stands  near  the  Lake  of  Esthwaite,  on  a  desolate  part  of 
the  Shore  J  commanding  a  beautiful  Prospect.''''  This  seat 
was  once  the  haunt  of  a  lonely,  a  disappointed,  an  em- 
bittered man. 

"  Stranger !  these  gloomy  boughs 
Had  charms  for  him ;  and  here  he  loved  to  sit, 
His  only  visitants  a  straggling  sheep, 
The  stone-chat,  or  the  glancing  sand-piper ; 
And  on  these  barren  rocks,  with  fern  and  heath 
And  juniper  and  thistle  sprinkled  o'er. 
Fixing  his  downcast  eye,  he  many  an  hour 
A  morbid  pleasure  nourished,  tracing  here 
An  emblem  of  his  own  unfruitful  life ; 
And,  lifting  up  his  head,  he  then  would  gaze 
On  the  more  distant  scene — how  lovely  'tis 
Thou  seest — and  he  would  gaze  till  it  became 
Far  lovelier,  and  his  heart  could  not  contain 
The  beauty,  still  more  beauteous !    Nor,  that  time, 
K      7  23 


140  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

When  Nature  had  subdued  him  to  herself, 
Would  he  forget  those  beings,  to  whose  minds, 
Warm  from  the  labours  of  benevolence, 
The  world,  and  human  life,  appeared  a  scene 
Of  kindred  loveliness ;  then  he  would  sigh 
With  mournful  joy,  to  think  that  others  felt 
What  he  must  never  feel :  and  so,  lost  Man ! 
On  visionary  views  would  fancy  feed 
Till  his  eyes  streamed  with  tears." 

This  is  one  of  the  passages  which  the  lover  of  Words- 
worth quotes,  perhaps,  with  some  apprehension ;  not  know- 
ing  how  far  it  carries  into  the  hearts  of  others  its  affect- 
ing power ;  how  vividly  it  calls  up  before  them  that  mood 
of  desolate  loneliness  when  the  whole  vision  of  human 
love  and  joy  hangs  like  a  mirage  in  the  air,  and  only  when 
it  seems  irrecoverably  distant  seems  also  intolerably  dear. 
But,  however  this  particular  passage  may  impress  the 
reader,  it  is  not  hard  to  illustrate  by  abundant  references 
the  potent  originality  of  Wordsworth's  outlook  on  the 
external  world. 

There  was  indeed  no  aspect  of  nature,  however  often 
depicted,  in  which  his  seeing  eye  could  not  discern  some 
unnoted  quality ;  there  was  no  mood  to  which  nature 
gave  birth  in  the  mind  of  man  from  which  his  meditation 
could  not  disengage  some  element  which  threw  light  on 
our  inner  being.  How  often  has  the  approach  of  evening 
been  described!  and  how  mysterious  is  its  solemnizing 
power !  Yet  it  was  reserved  for  Wordsworth,  in  his  son- 
net "  Hail,  Twilight,  sovereign  of  one  peaceful  hour,"  to 
draw  out  a  characteristic  of  that  grey  waning  light  which 
half  explains  to  us  its  sombre  and  pervading  charm. 
"  Day's  mutable  distinctions  "  pass  away ;  all  in  the  land- 
scape that  suggests  our  own  age  or  our  own  handiwork  ia 
gone ;  we  look  on  the  sight  seen  by  our  remote  ancestors, 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  141 

and  the  visible  present  is  generalized  into  an  immeasu- 
rable past. 

The  sonnet  on  the  Duddon  beginning  "What  aspect 
bore  the  Man  who  roved  or  fled  First  of  his  tribe  to  this 
dark  dell  ?"  carries  back  the  mind  along  the  same  track, 
with  the  added  thought  of  Nature's  permanent  gentleness 
amid  the  "  hideous  usages  "  of  primeval  man — through  all 
which  the  stream's  voice  was  innocent,  and  its  flow  benign. 
"  A  weight  of  awe  not  easy  to  be  borne  "  fell  on  the  poet, 
also,  as  he  looked  on  the  earliest  memorials  which  these 
remote  ancestors  have  left  us.  The  Sonnet  on  a  Stone- 
Circle  which  opens  with  these  words  is  conceived  in  a 
strain  of  emotion  never  more  needed  than  now  —  when 
Abury  itself  owes  its  preservation  to  the  munificence  of 
a  private  individual  —  when  stone -circle  or  round- tower, 
camp  or  dolmen,  are  destroyed  to  save  a  few  shillings,  and 
occupation-roads  are  mended  with  the  immemorial  altars 
of  an  unknown  God.  "Speak,  Giant- mother !  tell  it  to 
the  Morn !" — how  strongly  does  the  heart  re-echo  the  sol- 
emn invocation  which  calls  on  those  abiding  witnesses  to 
speak  once  of  what  they  knew  long  ago ! 

The  mention  of  these  ancient  worships  may  lead  us  to 
ask  in  what  manner  Wordsworth  was  affected  by  the  Nat- 
ure-deities of  Greece  and  Rome  —  impersonations  which 
have  preserved  through  so  many  ages  so  strange  a  charm. 
And  space  must  be  found  here  for  the  characteristic  son- 
net in  which  the  baseness  and  materialism  of  modern  life 
drives  him  back  on  whatsoever  of  illumination  and  reality 
lay  in  that  young  ideal. 

"  The  world  is  too  much  with  us ;  late  and  soon, 
Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers ; 
Little  we  see  in  Nature  that  is  ours ; 
We  have  given  our  hearts  away,  a  sordid  boon ! 


142  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

The  Sea  that  bares  her  bosom  to  the  moon ; 

The  Winds  that  will  be  howling  at  all  hours, 

And  are  up-gathered  now  like  sleeping  flowers ; 
For  this,  for  everything  we  are  out  of  tune ; 
It  moves  us  not.     Great  God  !  I'd  rather  be 

A  pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn ; 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 

Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn ; 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea : 

Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn." 

Wordsworth's  own  imagination  idealized  Nature  in  a 
different  way.  The  sonnet  "  Brook !  whose  society  the 
poet  seeks  "  places  him  among  the  men  whose  Nature-dei- 
ties have  not  yet  become  anthropomorphic — men  to  whom 
"unknown  modes  of  being"  may  seem  more  lovely  as 
well  as  more  awful  than  the  life  we  know.  He  would  not 
give  to  his  idealized  brook  "  human  cheeks,  channels  for 
tears — no  Naiad  shouldst  thou  be  " — 

"  It  seems  the  Eternal  Soul  is  clothed  in  thee 
With  purer  robes  than  those  of  flesh  and  blood, 
And  hath  bestowed  on  thee  a  better  good ; 
Unwearied  joy,  and  life  without  its  cares." 

And  in  the  Sonnet  on  Calais  Beach  the  sea  is  regarded  in 
the  same  way,  with  a  sympathy  (if  I  may  so  say)  which 
needs  no  help  from  an  imaginary  impersonation,  but 
strikes  back  to  a  sense  of  kinship  which  seems  antecedent 
to  the  origin  of  man. 

"It  is  a  beauteous  Evening,  calm  and  free ; 
The  holy  time  is  quiet  as  a  Nun 
Breathless  with  adoration ;  the  broad  sun 

Is  sinking  down  in  its  tranquillity ; 

The  gentleness  of  heaven  is  on  the  Sea : 
Listen !  the  mighty  Being  is  awake, 
And  doth  with  his  eternal  motion  make 

A  sound  like  thunder — everlastingly." 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGIOX.  143 

A  comparison,  made  by  Wordsworth  himself,  of  his 
own  method  of  observing  Nature  with  Scott's  expresses  in 
less  mystical  language  something  of  what  I  am  endeavour- 
ing to  say. 

**  He  expatiated  much  to  me  one  day,"  says  Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere, 
*'  as  we  walked  among  the  hills  above  Grasmere,  on  the  mode  in 
which  Nature  had  been  described  by  one  of  the  most  justly  popular 
of  England's  modern  poets — one  for  whom  he  preserved  a  high  and 
affectionate  respect.  *  He  took  pains/  Wordsworth  said ;  '  he  went 
out  with  his  pencil  and  note-book,  and  jotted  down  whatever  struck 
him  most — a  river  rippling  over  the  sands,  a  ruined  tower  on  a  rock 
above  it,  a  promontory,  and  a  mountain-ash  waving  its  red  berries. 
He  went  home  and  wove  the  whole  together  into  a  poetical  descrip- 
tion.' After  a  pause,  Wordsworth  resumed,  with  a  flashing  eye  and 
impassioned  voice :  '  But  Nature  does  not  permit  an  inventory  to  be 
made  of  her  charms !  He  should  have  left  his  pencil  and  note-book 
at  home,  fixed  his  eye  as  he  walked  with  a  reverent  attention  on  all 
that  surrounded  him,  and  taken  all  into  a  heart  that  could  under- 
stand and  enjoy.  Then,  after  several  days  had  passed  by,  he  should 
have  interrogated  his  memory  as  to  the  scene.  He  would  have  dis- 
covered that,  while  much  of  what  he  had  admired  was  preserved  to 
him,  much  was  also  most  wisely  obliterated ;  that  which  remained — 
the  picture  surviving  in  his  mind — would  have  presented  the  ideal 
and  essential  truth  of  the  scene,  and  done  so  in  a  large  part  by  dis- 
carding much  which,  though  in  itself  striking,  was  not  characteristic. 
In  every  scene  many  of  the  most  brilliant  details  are  but  accidental ; 
a  true  eye  for  Nature  does  not  note  them,  or  at  least  does  not  dwell 
on  them.' " 

•  How  many  a  phrase  of  Wordsworth's  rises  in  the  mind 
in  illustration  of  this  power !  phrases  which  embody  in  a 
single  picture,  or  a  single  image  —  it  may  be  the  vivid 
wildness  of  the  flowery  coppice,  of 

"  Flaunting  summer,  when  he  throws 
His  soul  into  the  briar-rose  " — 

or  the  melancholy  stillness  of  the  declining  year — 


U4  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

"  Where  floats 
0*er  twilight  fields  the  autumnal  gossamer ;" 

or,  as  in  the  words  which  to  the  sensitive  Charles  Lamb 
seemed  too  terrible  for  art,  the  irresponsive  blankness  of 
the  universe — 

"  The  broad  open  eye  of  the  solitary  sky  " — 

beneath  which  mortal  hearts  must  make  what  merriment 
they  may. 

Or  take  those  typical  stanzas  in  Peter  Bell,  which  so 
long  were  accounted  among  Wordsworth's  leading  absurd- 
ities. 

"  In  vain  through  every  changeful  year 

Did  Nature  lead  him  as  before ; 

A  primrose  by  the  river's  brim 

A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him, 
And  it  was  nothing  more. 

"  In  vain,  through  water,  earth,  and  air, 
The  soul  of  happy  sound  was  spread, 
When  Peter,  on  some  April  morn. 
Beneath  the  broom  or  budding  thorn, 
Made  the  warm  earth  his  lazy  bed. 

"  At  noon,  when  by  the  forest's  edge 
He  lay  beneath  the  branches  high, 

The  soft  blue  sky  did  never  mell 

Into  his  heart — he  never  felt 
The  witchery  of  the  soft  blue  sky ! 

"  On  a  fair  prospect  some  have  looked 
And  felt,  as  I  have  heard  them  say, 
As  if  the  moving  time  had  been 
A  thing  as  steadfast  as  the  scene 
On  which  they  gazed  themselves  away." 

In  all  these  passages,  it  will  be  observed,  the  emotion  is 
educed  from  Nature  rather  than  added  to  her;  she  is 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  146 

treated  as  a  mystic  text  to  be  deciphered,  rather  than  as  a 
stimulus  to  roving  imagination.  This  latter  mood,  indeed, 
Wordsworth  feels  occasionally,  as  in  the  sonnet  where 
the  woodland  sights  become  to  him  "  like  a  dream  of  the 
whole  world ;"  but  it  is  checked  by  the  recurring  sense 
that  "  it  is  our  business  to  idealize  the  real,  and  not  to 
realize  the  ideal."  Absorbed  in  admiration  of  fantastic 
clouds  of  sunset,  he  feels  for  a  moment  ashamed  to  think 
that  they  are  unrememberable — 

"  They  are  of  the  sky, 
And  from  our  earthly  memory  fade  away." 

But  soon  he  disclaims  this  regret,  and  reasserts  the  para- 
mount interest  of  the  things  that  we  can  grasp  and  love : 

"  Grove,  isle,  with  every  shape  of  sky-built  dome, 
Though  clad  in  colours  beautiful  and  pure, 
Find  in  the  heart  of  man  no  natural  home : 
The  immortal  Mind  craves  objects  that  endure : 
These  cleave  to  it ;  from  these  it  cannot  roam. 
Nor  they  from  it :  their  fellowship  is  secure." 

From  this  temper  of  Wordsworth's  mind,  it  follows  that 
there  will  be  many  moods  in  which  we  shall  not  retain 
him  as  our  companion.  Moods  which  are  rebellious,  which 
beat  at  the  bars  of  fate ;  moods  of  passion  reckless  in  its 
vehemence,  and  assuming  the  primacy  of  all  other  emo- 
tions through  the  intensity  of  its  delight  or  pain ;  moods 
of  mere  imaginative  phantasy,  when  we  would  fain  shape 
from  the  well-worn  materials  of  our  thought  some  fabric 
at  once  beautiful  and  new  ;  from  all  such  phases  of  our  in- 
ward being  Wordsworth  stands  aloof.  His  poem  on  the 
nightingale  and  the  stock-dove  illustrates  with  half-con- 
scious allegory  the  contrast  between  himself  and  certaiij 
other  poets. 


146  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

"  0  Nightingale !  thou  surely  art 
A  creature  of  a  fiery  heart ; 
These  notes  of  thine — they  pierce  and  pierce ; 
Tumultuous  harmony  and  fierce ! 
Thou  sing'st  as  if  the  God  of  wine 
Had  helped  thee  to  a  Valentine ; 
A  song  in  mockery  and  despite 
Of  shades,  and  dews,  and  silent  Night ; 
And  steady  bliss,  and  all  the  loves 
Now  sleeping  in  their  peaceful  groves. 

"  I  heard  a  Stock-dove  sing  or  say 
His  homely  tale,  this  very  day  ; 
His  voic3  was  buried  among  trees. 
Yet  to  be  come  at  by  the  breeze : 
He  did  not  cease ;  but  cooed — and  cooed, 
And  somewhat  pensively  he  wooed. 
He  sang  of  love  with  quiet  blending, 
Slow  to  begin,  and  never  ending ; 
Of  serious  faith  and  inward  glee ; 
That  was  the  Song — the  Song  for  me !" 

"  His  voice  was  buried  among  trees^''  says  Wordsworth ; 
"a  metaphor  expressing  the  love  of  seclusion  by  which 
this  bird  is  marked;  and  characterizing  its  note  as  not 
partaking  of  the  shrill  and  the  piercing,  and  therefore 
more  easily  deadened  by  the  intervening  shade ;  yet  a  note 
so  peculiar,  and  withal  so  pleasing,  that  the  breeze,  gifted 
with  that  love  of  the  sound  which  the  poet  feels,  pene- 
trates the  shade  in  which  it  is  entombed,  and  conveys  it 
to  the  ear  of  the  listener." 

Wordsworth's  poetry  on  the  emotional  side  (as  dis- 
tinguished from  its  mystical  or  its  patriotic  aspects)  could 
hardly  be  more  exactly  described  than  in  the  above  sen- 
tence. For  while  there  are  few  poems  of  his  which  could 
be  read  to  a  mixed  audience  with  the  certainty  of  pro- 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  147 

ducing  an  immediate  impression  ;  yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
all  the  best  ones  gain  in  an  unusual  degree  by  repeated 
study ;  and  this  is  especially  the  case  with  those  in  which 
some  touch  of  tenderness  is  enshrined  in  a  scene  of  beau- 
ty, which  it  seems  to  interpret,  while  it  is  itself  exalted 
by  it.  Such  a  poem  is  Stepping  Westward,  where  the 
sense  of  sudden  fellowship,  and  the  quaint  greeting  be- 
neath the  glowing  sky,  seem  to  link  man's  momentary 
wanderings  with  the  cosmic  spectacles  of  heaven.  Such 
are  the  lines  where  all  the  wild  romance  of  Highland 
scenery,  the  forlornness  of  the  solitary  vales,  pours  itself 
through  the  lips  of  the  maiden  singing  at  her  work,  "  as 
if  her  song  could  have  no  ending  " — 

"  Alone  she  cuts  and  binds  the  grain, 
And  sings  a  melancholy  strain ; 
0  listen !  for  the  Vale  profound 
Is  overflowing  with  the  sound." 

Such — and  with  how  subtle  a  difference! — is  the  Frag- 
ment in  which  a  "  Spirit  of  noonday  "  wears  on  his  face 
the  silent  joy  of  Nature  in  her  own  recesses,  undisturbed 
by  beast,  or  bird,  or  man — 

"  Nor  ever  -was  a  cloudless  sky 
So  steady  or  so  fair." 

And  such  are  the  poems —  We  are  Seven,  The  Pet  Lamh^ 

^  The  Pet  Lamb  is  probably  the  only  poem  of  Wordsworth's 
which  can  be  charged  with  having  done  moral  injury,  and  that  to  a 
single  individual  alone.  "  Barbara  Lewthwaite,"  says  Wordsworth, 
m  1843,  "  was  not,  in  fact,  the  child  whom  I  had  seen  and  overheard 
as  engaged  in  the  poem.  I  chose  the  name  for  reasons  implied  in 
the  above  "  (i.  e.,  an  account  of  her  remarkable  beauty), "  and  will 
here  add  a  caution  against  the  use  of  names  of  living  persons. 
Within  a  few  months  after  the  publication  of  this  poem  I  was  much 
surprised,  and  more  hurt,  to  find  it  in  a  child's  school-book,  which, 
7* 


148  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

Louisa^  The  Two  April  Mornings — in  which  the  beauty 
of  rustic  children  melts,  as  it  were,  into  Nature  herself, 

and  the 

"  Bloomiug  girl  whose  hair  was  wet 

With  points  of  morning  dew  " 

becomes  the  impersonation  of  the  season's  early  joy.  We 
may  apply,  indeed,  to  all  these  girls  Wordsworth's  de- 
scription of  leverets  playing  on  a  lawn,  and  call  them — 

"  Separate  creatures  in  their  several  gifts 
Abounding,  but  so  fashioned  that  in  all 
That  Nature  prompts  them  to  display,  their  looks, 
Their  starts  of  motion  and  their  fits  of  rest, 
An  undistinguishable  style  appears 
And  character  of  gladness,  as  if  Spring 
Lodged  in  their  innocent  bosoms,  and  the  spirit 
Of  the  rejoicing  Morning  were  their  own." 

My  limits  forbid  me  to  dwell  longer  on  these  points. 
The  passages  which  I  have  been  citing  have  been  for  the 
most  part  selected  as  illustrating  the  novelty  and  subtlety 
of  Wordsworth's  view  of  nature.  But  it  will  now  be  suf- 
ficiently clear  how  continually  a  strain  of  human  interest 
is  interwoven  with  the  delight  derived  from  impersonal 
things. 

"Long  have  I  loved  what  I  behold, 

The  night  that  calms,  the  day  that  cheers : 

The  common  growth  of  mother  earth 

Suffices  me — her  tears,  her  mirth, 

Her  humblest  mirth  and  tears." 

having  been  compiled  by  Lindley  Murray,  had  come  into  use  at 
Grasmere  School,  where  Barbara  was  a  pupil.  And,  alas,  I  had  the 
mortification  of  hearing  that  she  was  very  vain  of  being  thus  dis- 
tinguished ;  and  in  after-life  she  used  to  say  that  she  remembered 
the  incident,  and  what  I  said  to  her  upon  the  occasion." 


X.]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  149 

The  poet  of  the  Waggoner  —  who,  himself  a  habitual 
water-drinker,  has  so  glowingly  described  the  glorification 
which  the  prospect  of  nature  receives  in  a  half-intoxicated 
brain — may  justly  claim  that  he  can  enter  into  all  genuine 
pleasures,  even  of  an  order  which  he  declines  for  himself. 
With  anything  that  is  false  or  artificial  he  cannot  sympa- 
thize, nor  with  such  faults  as  baseness,  cruelty,  rancour, 
which  seem  contrary  to  human  nature  itself ;  but  in  deal- 
ing with  faults  of  mere  weakness  he  is  far  less  strait-laced 
than  many  less  virtuous  men. 

He  had,  in  fact,  a  reverence  for  human  beings  as  such, 
which  enabled  him  to  face  even  their  frailties  without 
alienation;  and  there  was  something  in  his  own  happy 
exemption  from  such  falls  which  touched  him  into  regard- 
ing men  less  fortunate  rather  with  pity  than  disdain : 

"  Because  the  unstained,  the  clear,  the  crystalline, 
Have  ever  in  them  something  of  benign." 

His  comment  on  Burns's  Tarn  o*  Shanter  will  perhaps 
surprise  some  readers  who  are  accustomed  to  think  of  him 
only  in  his  didactic  attitude. 

"  It  is  the  privilege  of  poetic  genius,"  he  says,  "  to  catch,  under 
certain  restrictions  of  which,  perhaps,  at  the  time  of  its  being  exerted 
it  is  but  dimly  conscious,  a  spirit  of  pleasure  wherever  it  can  be  found, 
in  the  walks  of  nature,  and  in  the  business  of  men.  The  poet,  trust- 
ing to  primary  instincts,  luxuriates  among  the  felicities  of  love  and 
wine,  and  is  enraptured  while  he  describes  the  fairer  aspects  of  war, 
nor  does  he  shrink  from  the  company  of  the  passion  of  love,  though 
immoderate — from  convivial  pleasures,  though  intemperate — nor  from 
the  presence  of  war,  though  savage,  and  recognized  as  the  handmaid 
of  desolation.  Frequently  and  admirably  has  Burns  given  way  to 
these  impulses  of  nature,  both  with  reference  to  himself  and  in  de- 
scribing the  condition  of  others.  Who,  but  some  impenetrable  dunce 
or  narrow-minded  puritan  in  works  of  art,  ever  read  without  delight 


150  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

the  picture  which  he  has  drawn  of  the  convivial  exultation  of  the 
rustic  adventurer,  Tarn  o'  Shanter?  The  poet  fears  not  to  tell  the 
reader  in  the  outset  that  his  hero  was  a  desperate  and  sottish  drunk- 
ard,  whose  excesses  were  as  frequent  as  his  opportunities.  This 
reprobate  sits  down  to  his  cups  while  the  storm  is  roaring,  and 
heaven  and  earth  are  in  confusion;  the  night  is  driven  on  by  song 
and  tumultuous  noise,  laughter  and  jest  thicken  as  the  beverage  im- 
proves upon  the  palate — conjugal  fidehty  archly  bends  to  the  service 
of  general  benevolence — selfishness  is  not  absent,  but  wearing  the 
mask  of  social  cordiality ;  and  while  these  various  elements  of  hu- 
manity are  blended  into  one  proud  and  happy  composition  of  elated 
spirits,  the  anger  of  the  tempest  without  doors  only  heightens  and 
sets  o£E  the  enjoyment  within.  I  pity  him  who  cannot  perceive  that 
in  all  this,  though  there  was  no  moral  purpose,  there  is  a  moral 
effect. 

"  *  Kings  may  be  blest,  but  Tam  was  glorious, 
O'er  a'  the  ills  of  life  victorious.' 

What  a  lesson  do  these  words  convey  of  charitable  indulgence  for 
the  vicious  habits  of  the  principal  actor  in  the  scene,  and  of  those 
who  resemble  him !  Men  who  to  the  rigidly  virtuous  are  objects  al- 
most of  loathing,  and  whom  therefore  they  cannot  serve !  The  poet, 
penetrating  the  unsightly  and  disgusting  surfaces  of  things,  has  un- 
veiled with  exquisite  skill  the  finer  ties  of  imagination  and  feeling, 
that  often  bind  these  beings  to  practices  productive  of  so  much  un- 
happiness  to  themselves,  and  to  those  whom  it  is  their  duty  to  cher- 
ish ;  and,  as  far  as  he  puts  the  reader  into  possession  of  this  intel- 
ligent sympathy,  he  qualifies  him  for  exercising  a  salutary  influence 
over  the  minds  of  those  who  are  thus  deplorably  enslaved." 

The  reverence  for  man  as  man,  the  sympathy  for  him 
in  his  primary  relations  and  his  essential  being,  of  which 
these  comments  on  Tam  o'  Shanter  form  so  remairkable 
an  example,  is  a  habit  of  thought  too  ingrained  in  all 
Wordsworth's  works  to  call  for  specific  illustration.  The 
figures  of  Michael,  of  Matthew,  of  the  Brothers,  of  the 
hero  of  tbe  Excursion,  and  even  of  the  Idiot  Boy,  suggest 
themselves  at  once  in  this  connexion.     But  it  should  be 


X]  NATURAL  RELIGION.  151 

noted  in  each  case  how  free  is  the  poet's  view  from  any 
idealization  of  the  poorer  classes  as  such,  from  the  ascrip- 
tion of  imaginary  merits  to  an  unknown  populace  which 
forms  the  staple  of  so  much  revolutionary  eloquence. 
These  poems,  while  they  form  the  most  convincing  rebuke 
to  the  exclusive  pride  of  the  rich  and  great,  are  also  a 
stern  and  strenuous  incentive  to  the  obscure  and  lowly. 
They  are  pictures  of  the  poor  man's  life  as  it  is — pictures 
as  free  as  Crabbe's  from  the  illusion  of  sentiment — but  in 
which  the  delight  of  mere  observation  (which  in  Crabbe 
predominates)  is  subordinated  to  an  intense  sympathy  with 
all  such  capacities  of  nobleness  and  tenderness  as  are  called 
out  by  the  stress  and  pressure  of  penury  or  woe.  They 
form  for  the  folk  of  northern  England  (as  the  works  of 
Bums  and  Scott  for  the  Scottish  folk)  a  gallery  of  figures 
that  are  modelled,  as  it  were,  both  from  without  and  from 
within ;  by  one  with  experience  so  personal  as  to  keep 
every  sentence  vividly  accurate,  and  yet  with  an  insight 
which  could  draw  from  that  simple  life  lessons  to  itself 
unknown.  We  may  almost  venture  to  gcneral'zc  our 
statement  further,  and  vo  assert  that  no  writi'r  since  Shak- 
speare  has  left  uo  =,0  tiae  a  picture  of  the  British  nation. 
in  Milton,  indeed,  we  have  the  cli:j,racteristic  English  spirit 
at  a  whiter  glow ;  but  it  is  the  spirit  of  the  scholar  only, 
or  of  the  ruler,  not  of  the  peasant,  the  woman,  or  the  child. 
Wordsworth  gives  us  that  spirit  as  it  is  diffused  among 
shepherds  and  husbandmen — as  it  exists  in  obscurity  and 
at  peace.  And  they  who  know  what  makes  the  strength 
of  nations  need  wish  nothing  better  than  that  the  tem- 
per whifjh  he  saw  and  honoured  among  the  Cumbrian 
dales  should  be  the  temper  of  all  England,  now  and  for 
ever. 

Our  discussion  of  Wordsworth's  form  of  Natural  Religion 


152  WORDSWORTH.  [chap.x 

has  led  us  back  by  no  forced  transition  to  tbe  simple  life 
wMch  he  described  and  shared.  I  return  to  the  story  of 
his  later  years — if  that  be  called  a  story  which  derives  no 
interest  from  incident  or  passion,  and  dwells  only  on  the 
slow  broodings  of  a  meditative  souL 


CHAPTER  XL 

ITALIAN   TOUR. ECCLESIASTICAL    SONNETS. — POLITICAL 

VIEWS. LAUREATESHIP. 

Wordsworth  was  fond  of  travelling,  and  indulged  this 
taste  whenever  he  could  afford  it.  Comparing  himself  and 
Southey,  he  says  in  1843:  "My  lamented  friend  Southey 
used  to  say  that,  had  he  been  a  Papist,  the  course  of  life 
which  m  all  probability  would  have  been  his  was  that  of 
a  Benedictine  monk,  in  a  convent  furnished  with  an  inex- 
haustible library.  Boohs  were,  in  fact,  his  passion ;  and 
wandering^  I  can  with  truth  affirm,  was  mine;  but  this 
propensity  in  me  was  happily  counteracted  by  inability 
from  want  of  fortune  to  fulfil  my  wishes."  We  find  him, 
however,  frequently  able  to  contrive  a  change  of  scene. 
His  Swiss  tour  in  1790,  his  residence  in  France  in  1791-2, 
his  residence  in  Germany,  1798-9,  have  been  already 
touched  on.  Then  came  a  short  visit  to  France  in  August, 
1802,  which  produced  the  sonnets  on  Westminster  Bridge 
and  Calais  Beach.  The  tour  in  Scotland  which  was  so 
fertile  in  poetry  took  place  in  1803.  A  second  tour  in 
Scotland,  in  1814,  produced  the  Broionie's  Cell  and  a  few 
other  pieces.  And  in  July,  1820,  he  set  out  with  his  wife 
and  sister  and  two  or  three  other  friends  for  a  tour  through 
Switzerland  and  Italy. 

This  tour  produced  a  good  deal  of  poetry ;  and  here  and 


154  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

ttere  are  touches  which  recall  the  old  inspiration.  Such 
is  the  comparison  of  the  clouds  about  the  Engelberg  to 
hovering  angels ;  and  such  the  description  of  the  eclipse 
falling  upon  the  population  of  statues  which  throng  the 
pinnacles  of  Milan  Cathedral.  But  for  the  most  part  the 
poems  relating  to  this  tour  have  an  artificial  look;  the 
sentiments  in  the  vale  of  Chamouni  seem  to  have  been 
laboriously  summoned  for  the  occasion;  and  the  poet's 
admiration  for  the  Italian  maid  and  the  Helvetian  girl  is 
a  mere  shadow  of  the  old  feeling  for  the  Highland  girl,  to 
whom,  in  fact,  he  seems  obliged  to  recur  in  order  to  give 
reality  to  his  new  emotion. 

To  conclude  the  subject  of  Wordsworth's  travels,  I  will 
mention  here  that  in  1823  he  made  a  tour  in  Holland,  and 
in  1824  in  North  Wales,  where  his  sonnet  to  the  torrent 
at  the  Devil's  Bridge  recalls  the  Swiss  scenery  seen  in  his 
youth  with  vigour  and  dignity.  In  1828  he  made  another 
excursion  in  Belgium  with  Coleridge,  and  in  1829  he  visit- 
ed Ireland  with  his  friend  Mr.  Marshall.  Neither  of  these 
tours  was  productive.  In  1831  he  paid  a  visit  with  his 
daughter  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  at  Abbotsford,  before  his  de- 
parture to  seek  health  in  Italy.  Scott  received  them  cor- 
dially, and  had  strength  to  take  them  to  the  Yarrow.  "  Of 
that  excursion,"  says  Wordsworth,  "  the  verses  Yarrow  Re- 
visited are  a  memorial.  On  our  return  in  the  afternoon  we 
had  to  cross  the  Tweed,  directly  opposite  Abbotsford.  A 
rich  but  sad  light,  of  rather  a  purple  than  a  golden  hue, 
was  spread  over  the  Eildon  hills  at  that  moment;  and, 
thinking  it  probable  that  it  might  be  the  last  time  Sir 
Walter  would  cross  the  stream  (the  Tweed),  I  was  not  a 
little  moved,  and  expressed  some  of  my  feelings  in  the 
sonnet  beginning,  A  trouble  not  of  clouds  nor  weeping  rain. 
At  noon  on  Thursday  we  left  Abbotsford,  and  on  the  morn- 


XI.]  ITALIAN  TOUR.  155 

ing  of  that  day  Sir  Walter  and  I  liad  a  serious  conversation, 
tete-a-tete,  when  he  spoke  with  gratitude  of  the  happy  life 
which,  upon  the  whole,  he  had  led.  He  had  written  in  my 
daughter's  album,  before  he  came  into  the  breakfast-room 
that  morning,  a  few  stanzas  addressed  to  her ;  and,  while 
putting  the  book  into  her  hand,  in  his  own  study,  stand- 
ing by  his  desk,  he  said  to  her,  in  my  presence, '  I  should 
not  have  done  anything  of  this  kind  but  for  your  father's 
sake ;  they  are  probably  the  last  verses  I  shall  ever  write.' 
They  show  how  much  his  mind  was  impaired ;  not  by  the 
strain  of  thought,  but  by  the  execution,  some  of  the  lines 
being  imperfect,  and  one  stanza  wanting  corresponding 
rhymes.  One  letter,  the  initial  S,  had  been  omitted  in 
the  spelling  of  his  own  name." 

There  was  another  tour  in  Scotland  in  1833,  which  pro- 
duced Memorials  of  little  poetic  value.  And  in  183*7  he 
made  a  long  tour  in  Italy  with  Mr.  Crabbe  Robinson.^  But 
the  poems  which  record  this  tour  indicate  a  mind  scarcely 
any  longer  susceptible  to  any  vivid  stimulus  except  from 
accustomed  objects  and  ideas.  The  Musings  near  Aqua- 
pendente  are  musings  on  Scott  and  Helvellyn ;  the  Pine 
Tree  of  Monte  Mario  is  interesting  because  Sir  George 
Beaumont  has  saved  it  from  destruction;  the  Cuckoo  at 
Laverna  brings  all  childhood  back  into  his  heart.  "  I  re- 
member perfectly  well,"  says  Crabbe  Robinson,  "that  I 
heard  the  cuckoo  at  Laverna  twice  before  he  heard  it ;  and 
that  it  absolutely  fretted  him  that  my  ear  was  first  favour- 
ed ;  and  that  he  exclaimed  with  delight, '  I  hear  it !  I  hear 
it!'"  This  was  his  last  foreign  tour;  nor,  indeed,  are 
these  tours  very  noticeable  except  as  showing  that  he  was 
not  blindly  wedded  to  his  own  lake  scenery ;  that  his  ad- 
miration could  face  comparisons,  and  keep  the  same  vivid- 
ness when  he  was  fresh  from  '^ther  orders  of  beauty. 
L  2i 


166  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

The  productions  of  these  later  years  took  for  the  most 
part  a  didactic  rather  than  a  descriptive  form.  In  the 
volume  entitled  Poems  chiefly  of  Early  and  Later  YearSy 
published  in  1842,  were  many  hortatory  or  ecclesiastical 
pieces  of  inferior  merit,  and  among  them  various  additions 
to  the  Ecclesiastical  Sketches,  a  series  of  sonnets  begun  in 
1821,  but  which  he  continued  to  enlarge,  spending  on  them 
much  of  the  energies  of  his  later  years.  And  although  it 
is  only  in  a  few  instances — as  in  the  description  of  King's 
College,  Cambridge  —  that  these  sonnets  possess  force  or 
charm  enough  to  rank  them  high  as  poetry,  yet  they  as- 
sume a  certain  value  when  we  consider  not  so  much  their 
own  adequacy  as  the  greater  inadequacy  of  all  rival  at- 
tempts in  the  same  direction. 

The  Episcopalian  Churchman,  in  this  country  or  in  the 
United  States,  will  certainly  nowhere  find  presented  to  him 
in  poetical  form  so  dignified  and  comprehensive  a  record 
of  the  struggles  and  the  glories,  of  the  vicissitudes  and  the 
edification,  of  the  great  body  to  which  he  belongs.  Next 
to  the  Anglican  liturgy,  though  next  at  an  immense  in- 
terval, these  sonnets  may  take  rank  as  the  authentic  ex- 
position of  her  historic  being  —  an  exposition  delivered 
with  something  of  her  own  unadorned  dignity,  and  in  her 
moderate  and  tranquil  tone. 

I  would  not,  however,  seem  to  claim  too  much.  The 
religion  which  these  later  poems  of  Wordsworth's  embody 
is  rather  the  stately  tradition  of  a  great  Church  than  the 
pangs  and  aspirations  of  a  holy  soul.  There  is  little  in 
them,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  of  the  stuff  of  which  a 
Paul,  a  Francis,  a  Dominic  are  made.  That  fervent  emo- 
tion— akin  to  the  passion  of  love  rather  than  to  intellect- 
ual or  moral  conviction — finds  voice  through  singers  of  a 
very  different  tone.     It  is  fed  by  an  inward  anguish  and 


XI.]  ECCLESIASTICAL  SONNETS.  157 

felicity  which,  to  those  who  have  not  felt  them,  seem  as 
causeless  as  a  lover's  moods ;  by  wrestlings  not  with  liesh 
and  blood  ;  by  nights  of  despairing  self-abasement ;  by  ec- 
stasies of  an  incommunicable  peace.  How  great  the  gulf 
between  AVordsworth  and  George  Herbert ! — Herbert  "  of- 
fering at  heaven,  growing  and  groaning  thither  "  —  and 
Wordsworth,  for  whom  the  gentle  regret  of  the  lines — 

"  Me  this  unchartered  freedom  tires, 
I  feel  the  weight  of  chance  desires  " — 

forms  his  most  characteristic  expression  of  the  self-judg- 
ment of  the  solitary  soul. 

Wordsworth  accomplished  one  reconciliation  of  great 
importance  to  mankind.  He  showed,  as  plainly  in  his  way 
as  Socrates  had  shown  it  long  ago,  with  what  readiness  a 
profoundly  original  conception  of  the  scheme  of  things  will 
shape  itself  into  the  mould  of  an  established  and  venerable 
faith.  He  united  the  religion  of  the  philosopher  with  the 
religion  of  the  churchman ;  one  rarer  thing  he  could  not 
do :  he  could  not  unite  the  religion  of  the  philosopher 
with  the  religion  of  the  saint.  It  is,  indeed,  evident  that 
the  most  inspiring  feeling  which  breathes  through  Words- 
worth's ecclesiastical  pieces  is  not  of  a  doctrinal,  not  even 
of  a  spiritual  kind.  The  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  the  polit- 
ical sentiments  of  his  later  years  are  prompted  mainly  by 
the  admiring  love  with  which  he  regarded  the  structure  of 
English  society — seen  as  that  society  was  by  him  in  its 
simplest  and  most  poetic  aspect.  This  concrete  attach- 
ment to  the  scenes  about  him  had  always  formed  an  im- 
portant element  in  his  character.  Ideal  politics,  whether 
in  Church  or  State,  had  never  occupied  his  mind,  which 
sought  rather  to  find  its  informing  principles  embodied  in 
the  England  of  his  own  day.    The  sonnet  On  a  Parsonage 


158  WORDSWOKTH.  [chap. 

in  Oxfordshire  well  illustrates  the  loving  minuteness  with 
which  he  draws  out  the  beauty  and  fitness  of  the  estab- 
lished scheme  of  things — the  power  of  English  country 
life  to  satisfy  so  many  moods  of  feeling. 

The  country-seat  of  the  English  squire  or  nobleman  has 
become — may  we  not  say  ? — one  of  the  world's  chosen  types 
of  a  happy  and  a  stately  home.  And  Wordsworth,  espe- 
cially in  his  poems  which  deal  with  Coleorton,  has  shown 
how  deeply  he  felt  the  sway  of  such  a  home's  hereditary 
majesty,  its  secure  and  tranquillizing  charm.  Yet  there 
are  moods  w^en  the  heart  which  deeply  feels  the  inequali- 
ty of  human  lots  turns  towards  a  humbler  idea.  There  are 
moments  when  the  broad  park,  the  halls  and  towers,  seem 
no  longer  the  fitting  frame  of  human  greatness,  but  rather 
an  isolating  solitude,  an  unfeeling  triumph  over  the  poor. 

In  such  a  mood  of  mind  it  will  not  always  satisfy  us  to 
dwell,  as  Wordsworth  has  so  often  done,  on  the  virtue  and 
happiness  that  gather  round  a  cottage  hearth — which  we 
must,  after  all,  judge  by  a  somewhat  less  exacting  stand- 
ard. We  turn  rather  to  the  "  refined  rusticity  "  of  an  Eng- 
lish Parsonage  home — 

"  Where  holy  ground  begins,  unhallowed  ends, 
Is  marked  by  no  distinguishable  line ; 
The  turf  unites,  the  pathways  intertwine  " — 

and  the  clergyman's  abode  has  but  so  much  of  dignity  as 
befits  the  minister  of  the  Church  which  is  the  hamlet's 
centre;  enough  to  suggest  the  old  Athenian  boast  of 
beauty  without  extravagance,  and  study  without  effemi- 
nacy ;  enough  to  show  that  dwellings  where  not  this  life 
but  another  is  the  prevailing  thought  and  care,  yet  need 
not  lack  the  graces  of  culture  nor  the  loves  of  home. 
The  sonnet  on  Seathwaite  Chapel^  and  the  life  of  Robert 


XI.]  POLITICAL  VIEWS.  U9 

Walker,  the  incumbent  of  Seathwaite,  which  is  given  at 
length  in  the  notes  to  the  sonnets  on  the  Duddon,  afford 
a  still  more  characteristic  instance  of  the  clerical  ideal 
towards  which  Wordsworth  naturally  turned.  In  Robert 
Walker  he  had  a  Cumbrian  statesman  turned  into  a  prac- 
tical saint;  and  he  describes  him  with  a  gusto  in  which 
his  laboured  sonnets  on  Laud  or  on  Dissensions  are  wholly 
deficient. 

It  was  in  social  and  political  matters  that  the  conse- 
quences of  this  idealizing  view  of  the  facts  around  him  in 
Cumberland  were  most  apparent.  Take  education,  for 
example.  Wordsworth,  as  has  been  already  stated,  was 
one  of  the  earliest  and  most  impressive  assertors  of  the 
national  duty  of  teaching  every  English  child  to  read. 
He  insists  on  this  with  a  prosaic  earnestness  which  places 
several  pages  of  the  Excursion  among  what  may  be  called 
the  standing  bugbears  which  his  poems  offer  to  the  inex- 
perienced reader.  And  yet  as  soon  as,  through  the  exer- 
tions of  Bell  and  Lancaster,  there  seems  to  be  some  chance 
of  really  educating  the  poor.  Dr.  Bell,  whom  Coleridge 
fondly  imagines  as  surrounded  in  heaven  by  multitudes  of 
grateful  angels,  is  to  Wordsworth  a  name  of  horror.  The 
mistresses  trained  on  his  system  are  called  "  Dr.  Bell's 
sour-looking  teachers  in  petticoats."  And  the  instruction 
received  in  these  new-fangled  schools  Is  compared  to  "  the 
training  that  fits  a  boxer  for  victory  In  the  ring."  The 
reason  of  this  apparent  Inconsistency  Is  not  far  to  seek. 
Wordsworth's  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  village  life  around 
him.  Observation  of  that  life  Impressed  on  him  the  im- 
perative necessity  of  Instruction  In  reading.  But  It  was 
from  a  moral  rather  than  an  intellectual  point  of  view  that 
he  regarded  it  as  needful,  and,  this  opening  Into  the  world 
of  Ideas  once  secured,  he  held  that  the  cultivation  of  the 


160  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

home  afiections  and  home  duties  was  all  that  was  needed 
beyond.  And  thus  the  Westmoreland  dame,  "  in  her  sum- 
mer seat  in  the  garden,  and  in  winter  by  the  fireside,"  was 
elevated  into  the  unexpected  position  of  the  ideal  instruc- 
tress of  youth. 

Conservatism  of  this  kind  could  provoke  nothing  but  a 
sympathetic  smile.  The  case  was  different  when  the  same 
conservative — even  retrograde — tendency  showed  itself  on 
subjects  on  which  party-feeling  ran  high.  A  great  part 
of  the  meditative  energy  of  Wordsworth's  later  years  was 
absorbed  by  questions  towards  whose  solution  he  contrib- 
uted no  new  element,  and  which  filled  him  with  dispro- 
portionate fears.  And  some  injustice  has  been  done  to 
his  memory  by  those  who  have  not  fully  realized  the  pre- 
disposing causes  which  were  at  work — the  timidity  of  age, 
and  the  deep-rooted  attachment  to  the  England  which  he 
knew. 

I  speak  of  age,  perhaps,  somewhat  prematurely,  as  the 
poet's  gradually  growing  conservatism  culminated  in  his 
opposition  to  the  Catholic  Relief  Bill  before  he  was  sixty 
years  old.  But  there  is  nothing  to  wonder  at  in  the  fact 
that  the  mind  of  a  man  of  brooding  and  solitary  habits 
should  show  traces  of  advancing  age  earlier  than  is  the 
case  with  statesmen  or  men  of  the  world,  who  are  obliged 
to  keep  themselves  constantly  alive  to  the  ideas  of  the  gen- 
eration that  is  rising  around  them.  A  deadness  to  new 
impressions,  an  unwillingness  to  make  intellectual  efforts 
in  fresh  directions,  a  tendency  to  travel  the  same  mental 
pathways  over  and  over  again,  and  to  wear  the  ruts  of 
prejudice  deeper  at  every  step  ;  such  traces  of  age  as  these 
undoubtedly  manifested  themselves  in  the  way  in  which 
the  poet  confronted  the  great  series  of  changes  —  Catho- 
lic Emancipation,  Reform  Bill,  New  Poor  Law — on  which 


POLITICAL  VIEWS.  161 

England  entered  about  the  year  1829.  "My  sixty-second 
year,"  Wordsworth  writes,  in  1832,  "will  soon  be  com- 
pleted; and  though  I  have  been  favoured  thus  far  in 
health  and  strength  beyond  most  men  of  my  age,  yet  I 
feel  its  effects  upon  my  spirits ;  they  sink  under  a  pres- 
sure of  apprehension  to  which,  at  an  earlier  period  of  my 
life,  they  would  probably  have  been  superior."  To  this 
it  must  be  added  that  the  increasing  weakness  of  the 
poet's  eyes  seriously  limited  his  means  of  information. 
He  had  never  read  much  contemporary  literature,  and  he 
read  less  than  ever  now.  He  had  no  fresh  or  comprehen- 
sive knowledge  of  the  general  condition  of  the  country, 
and  he  really  believed  in  the  prognostication  which  was 
uttered  by  many  also  who  did  not  believe  in  it,  that  with 
the  Reform  Bill  the  England  which  he  knew  and  loved 
would  practically  disappear.  But  there  was  nothing  in 
him  of  the  angry  polemic,  nothing  of  the  calumnious  par- 
tisan. One  of  the  houses  where  Mr.  Wordsworth  was 
most  intimate  and  most  welcome  was  that  of  a  reforming 
member  of  Parliament,  who  was  also  a  manufacturer,  thus 
belonging  to  the  two  classes  for  which  the  poet  had  the 
greatest  abhorrence.  But  the  intimacy  was  never  for  a  mo- 
ment shaken,  and,  indeed,  in  that  house  Mr.  Wordsworth 
expounded  the  ruinous  tendency  of  Reform  and  manufact- 
ures with  even  unusual  copiousness,  on  account  of  the  ad- 
miring affection  with  which  he  felt  himself  surrounded. 
The  tone  in  which  he  spoke  was  never  such  as  could  give 
pain  or  excite  antagonism ;  and — if  I  may  be  pardoned  for 
descending  to  a  detail  which  well  illustrates  my  position — 
the  only  rejoinder  which  these  diatribes  provoked  was  that 
the  poet  on  his  arrival  was  sometimes  decoyed  into  utter- 
ing them  to  the  younger  members  of  the  family,  whose 
time  was  of  less  value,  so  as  to  set  his  mjnd  free  to  return 


162  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

to  those  topics  of  more  permanent  interest  where  his  con- 
versation kept  to  the  last  all  that  tenderness,  nobility,  wis" 
dom,  which  in  that  family,  as  in  many  others  familiar  with 
the  celebrated  persons  of  that  day,  won  for  him  a  regard 
and  a  reverence  such  as  was  accorded  to  no  other  man. 

To  those,  indeed,  who  realized  how  deeply  he  felt  these 
changes — how  profoundly  his  notion  of  national  happiness 
was  bound  up  with  a  lovely  and  vanishing  ideal — the 
prominent  reflection  was  that  the  hopes  and  principles 
which  maintained  through  all  an  underlying  hope  and 
trust  in  the  future  must  have  been  potent  indeed.  It  was 
no  easy  optimism  which  prompted  the  lines  written  in 
1837 — one  of  his  latest  utterances — in  which  he  speaks  to 
himself  with  strong  self-judgment  and  resolute  hope.  On 
reading  them  one  shrinks  from  dwelling  longer  upon  aa 
old  man's  weakness  and  a  brave  man's  fears. 

"  If  this  great  world  of  joy  and  pain 
Revolve  in  one  sure  track ; 
If  Freedom,  set,  revive  again, 
And  Virtue,  flown,  come  back — 

"  Woe  to  the  purblind  crew  who  fill 
The  heart  with  each  day's  care, 
Nor  learn,  from  past  and  future,  skill 
To  bear  and  to  forbear." 

The  poet  had  also  during  these  years  more  of  private 
sorrow  than  his  tranquil  life  had  for  a  long  time  expe- 
rienced. In  1832  his  sister  had  a  most  serious  illness, 
which  kept  her  for  many  months  in  a  state  of  great  pros- 
tration, and  left  her,  when  the  physical  symptoms  abated, 
with  her  intellect  painfully  impaired,  and  her  bright  nature 
permanently  overclouded.  Coleridge,  too,  was  nearing  his 
end.  "He  and  my  beloved  sister,"  writes  Wordsworth, 
in  1832, "  are  the  two  beings  to  whom  my  intellect  is  most 


XI.]  LAUREATESHIP.  163 

indebted,  and  they  are  now  proceeding,  as  it  were,  pari 
passUf  along  the  path  of  sickness,  I  will  not  say  towards 
the  grave,  but  I  trust  towards  a  blessed  immortality." 

In  July,  1834,  "every  mortal  power  of  Coleridge  was 
frozen  at  its  marvellous  source."  And  although  the  early 
intimacy  had  scarcely  been  maintained  —  though  the 
"  comfortless  and  hidden  well "  had,  for  a  time  at  least, 
replaced  the  "living  murmuring  fount  of  love"  which 
used  to  spring  beside  Wordsworth's  door  —  yet  the  loss 
was  one  which  the  surviving  poet  deeply  felt.  Coleridge 
was  the  only  contemporary  man  of  letters  with  whom 
Wordsworth's  connexion  had  been  really  close ;  and  when 
Wordsworth  is  spoken  of  as  one  of  a  group  of  poets  ex- 
emplifying in  various  ways  the  influence  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, it  is  not  always  remembered  how  very  little  he  had 
to  do  with  the  other  famous  men  of  his  time.  Scott  and 
Southey  were  valued  friends,  but  he  thought  little  of 
Scott's  poetry,  and  less  of  Southey's.  Byron  and  Shelley 
he  seems  scarcely  to  have  read;  and  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  he  had  ever  heard  of  Keats.  But  to  Coleridge 
his  mind  constantly  reverted ;  he  called  him  "  the  most 
wonderful  man  he  had  ever  known,"  and  he  kept  him  as 
the  ideal  auditor  of  his  own  poems,  long  after  Coleridge 
had  listened  to  the  Prelude — 

"  A  song  divine  of  high  and  passionate  thoughts 
To  their  own  music  chanted." 

In  1836,  moreover,  died  one  for  whom  Coleridge,  as 
well  as  Wordsworth,  had  felt  a  very  high  respect  and  re- 
gard—  Sarah  Hutchinson,  Mrs.  Wordsworth's  sister,  and 
long  the  inmate  of  Wordsworth's  household.  This  most 
valued  friend  had  been  another  instance  of  the  singular 
good  fortune  which  attended  Wordsworth  in  his  domestic 
3 


164  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

connexions;  and  wlien  she  was  laid  in  Grasmere  church- 
yard, the  stone  above  her  tomb  expressed  the  wish  of  the 
poet  and  his  wife  that,  even  as  her  remains  were  laid  be- 
side their  dead  children's,  so  their  own  bodies  also  might 
be  laid  by  hers. 

And  now,  while  the  inner  circle  of  friends  and  relations 
began  to  pass  away,  the  outer  circle  of  admirers  was  rap- 
idly spreading.  Between  the  years  1830  and  1840  Words- 
worth passed  from  the  apostle  of  a  clique  into  the  most 
illustrious  man  of  letters  in  England.  The  rapidity  of 
this  change  was  not  due  to  any  remarkable  accident,  nor 
to  the  appearance  of  any  new  work  of  genius.  It  was 
merely  an  extreme  instance  of  what  must  always  occur 
where  an  author,  running  counter  to  the  fashion  of  his 
age,  has  to  create  his  own  public  in  defiance  of  the  es- 
tablished critical  powers.  The  disciples  whom  he  draws 
round  him  are  for  the  most  part  young ;  the  established 
authorities  are  for  the  most  part  old  ;  so  that  by  the  time 
that  the  original  poet  is  about  sixty  years  old,  most  of  his 
admirers  will  be  about  forty,  and  most  of  his  critics  will 
be  dead.  His  admirers  now  become  his  accredited  critics ; 
his  works  are  widely  introduced  to  the  public ;  and  if  they 
are  really  good  his  reputation  is  secure.  In  Wordsworth'a 
case  the  detractors  had  been  unusually  persistent,  and  the 
reaction,  when  it  came,  was  therefore  unusually  violent ; 
it  was  even  somewhat  factitious  in  its  extent ;  and  the 
poems  were  forced  by  enthusiasts  upon  a  public  which 
was  only  half  ripe  for  them.  After  the  poet's  death  a 
temporary  counter-reaction  succeeded,  and  his  fame  is  only 
now  finding  its  permanent  level. 

Among  the  indications  of  growing  popularity  was  the 
publication  of  an  American  edition  of  Wordsworth's 
poems  in  1837,  by  Professor  Reed,  of  Philadelphia,  with 


xi.J  LAUREATESfflP.  165 

whom  the  poet  interchanged  many  letters  of  interest. 
"  The  acknowledgments,"  he  says,  in  one  of  these,  "  which 
I  receive  from  the  vast  continent  of  America  are  among 
the  most  grateful  that  reach  me.  What  a  vast  field  is 
there  open  to  the  English  mind,  acting  through  our  noble 
language !  Let  us  hope  that  our  authors  of  true  genius 
will  not  be  unconscious  of  that  thought,  or  inattentive  to 
the  duty  which  it  imposes  upon  them,  of  doing  their  ut- 
most to  instruct,  to  purify,  and  to  elevate  their  readers." 

But  of  all  the  manifestations  of  the  growing  honour  in 
which  Wordsworth  was  held,  none  was  more  marked  or 
welcome  than  the  honorary  degree  of  D.C.L.  conferred  on 
him  by  the  University  of  Oxford  in  the  summer  of  1839. 
Keble,  as  Professor  of  Poetry,  introduced  him  in  words  of 
admiring  reverence,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  audience 
was  such  as  had  never  been  evoked  in  that  place  before, 
"except  upon  the  occasions  of  the  visits  of  the  Duke 
of  Wellington."  The  collocation  was  an  interesting  one. 
The  special  claim  advanced  for  Wordsworth  by  Keble  in 
his  Latin  oration  was  "  that  he  had  shed  a  celestial  light 
upon  the  affections,  the  occupations,  the  piety  of  the  poor." 
And  to  many  men  besides  the  author  of  the  Christian 
Year  it  seemed  that  this  striking  scene  was,  as  it  were, 
another  visible  triumph  of  the  temper  of  mind  which  is  of 
the  essence  of  Christianity;  a  recognition  that  one  spirit 
more  had  become  as  a  little  child,  and  had  entered  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

In  October,  1842,  another  token  of  public  respect  was 
bestowed  on  him  in  the  shape  of  »n  annuity  of  300/.  a 
year  from  the  Civil  List  for  distinguished  literary  merit. 
*'  I  need  scarcely  add,"  says  Sir  Robert  Peel,  in  making 
the  offer,  "  that  the  acceptance  by  you  of  this  mark  of 
favour  from  the  Crown,  considering  the  grounds  on  which 


166  WORDSWORTH.  [chap.  xi. 

it  is  proposed,  will  impose  no  restraint  upon  your  perfect 
independence,  and  involve  no  obligation  of  a  personal 
nature."  In  March,  1843,  came  the  death  of  Southey,  and 
in  a  few  days  Wordsworth  received  a  letter  from  Earl  De 
la  Warr,  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  offering  him,  in  the  most 
courteous  terms,  the  office  of  Poet  Laureate,  which,  how- 
ever, he  respectfully  declined  as  imposing  duties  "  which, 
far  advanced  in  life  as  I  am,  I  cannot  venture  to  undertake." 

This  letter  brought  a  reply  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain, 
pressing  the  office  on  him  again,  and  a  letter  from  Sir 
Robert  Peel  which  gave  dignified  expression  to  the  na- 
tional feeling  in  the  matter.  "  The  offer,"  he  says,  "  was 
made  to  you  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  with  my  entire 
concurrence,  not  for  the  purpose  of  imposing  on  you  any 
onerous  or  disagreeable  duties,  but  in  order  to  pay  you 
that  tribute  of  respect  which  is  justly  due  to  the  first  of 
living  poets.  The  Queen  entirely  approved  of  the  nomi- 
nation, and  there  is  one  unanimous  feeling  on  the  part 
of  all  who  have  heard  of  the  proposal  (and  it  is  pretty 
generally  known)  that  there  could  not  be  a  question  about 
the  selection.  Do  not  be  deterred  by  the  fear  of  any  ob- 
ligations which  the  appointment  may  be  supposed  to 
imply.  I  will  undertake  that  you  shall  have  nothing 
required  from  you.  But  as  the  Queen  can  select  for  this 
honourable  appointment  no  one  whose  claims  for  respect 
and  honour,  on  account  of  eminence  as  a  poet,  can  be 
placed  in  competition  with  yours,  I  trust  you  will  not 
longer  hesitate  to  accept  it." 

This  letter  overcame  the  aged  poet's  scruples;  and  he 
filled  with  silent  dignity  the  post  of  Laureate  till,  after 
seven  years'  space,  a  worthy  successor  received 

"  This  laurel  greener  from  the  brows 
Of  him  that  uttered  nothing  base." 


CHAPTER  XII. 

LETTERS    ON    THE    KENDAL    AND    WINDERMERE    RAILWAY.— 

CONCLUSION. 

Wordsworth's  appointment  to  the  Laureateship  was  sig- 
nificant in  more  ways  than  one.  He  was  so  much  be- 
sides a  poet,  that  his  appointment  implied  something  of 
a  national  recognition,  not  only  of  his  past  poetical 
achievements,  but  of  the  substantial  truth  of  that  body 
of  principles  which  through  many  years  of  neglect  and 
ridicule  he  had  consistently  supported.  There  was,  there- 
fore, nothing  incongruous  in  the  fact  that  the  only  com- 
position of  any  importance  which  Wordsworth  produced 
after  he  became  Laureate  was  in  prose  —  his  two  letters 
on  the  projected  Kendal  and  Windermere  railway,  1844. 
No  topic,  in  fact,  could  have  arisen  on  which  the  veteran 
poet  could  more  fitly  speak  with  whatever  authority  his 
official  spokesmanship  of  the  nation's  higher  life  could 
give,  for  it  was  a  topic  with  every  aspect  of  which  he 
was  familiar ;  and  so  far  as  the  extension  of  railways 
through  the  Lake  country  was  defended  on  grounds  of 
popular  benefit  (and  not  merely  of  commercial  advan- 
tage) no  one,  certainly,  had  shown  himself  more  capable 
of  estimating  at  their  full  value  such  benefits  as  were  here 
proposed. 

The  results  which  follow  on  a  large  incursion  of  visitors 


168  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

into  the  Lake  country  may  be  considered  under  two  heads, 
as  affecting  the  residents,  or  as  affecting  the  visitors  them- 
selves. And  first  as  to  the  residents.  Of  the  wealthier 
class  of  these  I  say  nothing,  as  it  will  perhaps  be  thought 
that  their  inconvenience  is  outweighed  by  the  possible 
profits  which  the  railway  may  bring  to  speculators  or  con- 
tractors. But  the  effect  produced  on  the  poorer  resi- 
dents—  on  the  peasantry  —  is  a  serious  matter,  and  the 
danger  which  was  distantly  foreseen  by  Wordsworth  has 
since  his  day  assumed  grave  proportions.  And  lest  the 
poet's  estimate  of  the  simple  virtue  which  is  thus  jeop- 
ardized should  be  suspected  of  partiality,  it  may  be  al- 
lowable to  corroborate  it  by  the  testimony  of  an  eminent 
man  not  a  native  of  the  district,  though  a  settler  therein 
in  later  life,  and  whose  writings,  perhaps,  have  done  more 
than  any  man's  since  Wordsworth  to  increase  the  sum  of 
human  enjoyment  derived  both  from  Art  and  from  Nature. 
"  The  Border  peasantry  of  Scotland  and  England,"  says 
Mr.  Ruskin,^  "  painted  with  absolute  fidelity  by  Scott  and 
Wordsworth  (for  leading  types  out  of  this  exhaustless 
portraiture,  I  may  name  Dandie  Dinmont,  and  Michael), 
are  hitherto  a  scarcely  injured  race ;  whose  strength  and 
virtue  yet  survive  to  represent  the  body  and  soul  of  Eng- 
land, before  her  days  of  mechanical  decrepitude  and  com- 
mercial dishonour.  There  are  men  working  in  my  own 
fields  who  might  have  fought  with  Henry  the  Fifth  at 
Agincourt,  without  being  discerned  from  among  his 
knights ;  I  can  take  my  tradesmen's  word  for  a  thousand 
pounds ;  my  garden  gate  opens  on  the  latch  to  the  public 
road,  by  day  and  night,  without  fear  of  any  foot  entering 
but  my  own ;  and  my  girl-guests  may  wander  by  road  or 

^  A  Protest  against  the  Extensiwi  of  Railways  in  the  Lake  District, 
— Simpkin,  Marshall,  and  Co.,  ISVB. 


XII.]         LETTERS  ON  THE  PROJECTED  RAILWAY.  169 

moorland,  or  througli  every  bosky  dell  of  this  wild  wood, 
free  as  the  heather-bees  or  squirrels.  What  effect  on  the 
character  of  such  a  population  will  be  produced  by  the 
influx  of  that  of  the  suburbs  of  our  manufacturing  towns 
there  is  evidence  enough,  if  the  reader  cares  to  ascertain 
the  facts,  in  every  newspaper  on  his  morning  table." 

There  remains  the  question  of  how  the  greatest  benefit 
is  to  be  secured  to  visitors  to  the  country,  quite  apart  from 
the  welfare  of  its  more  permanent  inhabitants.  At  first 
sight  this  question  seems  to  present  a  problem  of  a  well- 
known  order — to  find  the  point  of  maximum  pleasure  to 
mankind  in  a  case  where  the  intensity  of  the  pleasure  va- 
ries inversely  as  its  extension — where  each  fresh  person 
who  shares  it  diminishes  'pro  tanto  the  pleasure  of  the 
rest.  But,  as  Wordsworth  has  pointed  out,  this  is  not  in 
reality  the  question  here.  To  the  great  mass  of  cheap  ex- 
cursionists the  characteristic  scenery  of  the  Lakes  is  in  it- 
self hardly  a  pleasure  at  all.  The  pleasure,  indeed,  which 
they  derive  from  contact  with  Nature  is  great  and  impor- 
tant, but  it  is  one  which  could  be  offered  to  them,  not  only 
as  well  but  much  better,  near  their  own  homes. 

"  It  is  benignly  ordained  that  green  fields,  clear  blue  skies,  running 
streams  of  pure  water,  rich  groves  and  woods,  orchards,  and  all  the 
ordinary  varieties  of  rural  nature  should  find  an  easy  way  to  the  affec- 
tions of  all  men.  But  a  taste  beyond  this,  however  desirable  it  may 
be  that  every  one  should  possess  it,  is  not  to  be  implanted  at  once ; 
it  must  be  gradually  developed  both  in  nations  and  individuals. 
Rocks  and  mountains,  torrents  and  wide-spread  waters,  and  all  those 
features  of  nature  which  go  to  the  composition  of  such  scenes  as  this 
part  of  England  is  distinguished  for,  cannot .  in  their  finer  relations  to 
the  human  mind,  be  comprehended,  or  even  very  imperfectly  conceived, 
without  processes  of  culture  or  opportunities  of  observation  in  some 
degree  habitual.  In  the  eye  of  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,  a 
rich  meadow,  with  fat  cattle  grazing  upon  it,  or  the  sight  of  what  they 


1'70  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

would  call  a  heavy  crop  of  corn,  is  worth  all  that  the  Alps  and  Pyre, 
nees  in  their  utmost  grandeur  and  beauty  could  show  to  them ;  and 
it  is  noticeable  what  trifling  conventional  prepossessions  will,  in  com. 
mon  minds,  not  only  preclude  pleasure  from  the  sight  of  natural 
beauty,  but  will  even  turn  it  into  an  object  of  disgust.  In  the  midst 
of  a  small  pleasure-ground  immediately  below  my  house  rises  a  de- 
tached rock,  equally  remarkable  for  the  beauty  of  its  form,  the  ancient 
oaks  that  grow  out  of  it,  and  the  flowers  and  shrubs  which  adorn  it. 
'  What  a  nice  place  would  this  be,'  said  a  Manchester  tradesman, 
pointing  to  the  rock, '  if  that  ugly  lump  were  but  out  of  the  way.'  Men 
as  little  advanced  in  the  pleasure  which  such  objects  give  to  others 
are  so  far  from  being  rare  that  they  may  be  said  fairly  to  represent 
a  large  majority  of  mankind.  This  is  the  fact,  and  none  but  the 
deceiver  and  the  willingly  deceived  can  be  offended  by  its  being 
stated." 

And,  since  this  is  so,  the  true  means  of  raising  the  taste 
of  the  masses  consists,  as  Wordsworth  proceeds  to  point 
out,  in  giving  them — not  a  few  hurried  glimpses  of  what 
is  above  their  comprehension,  but  permanent  opportunities 
of  learning  at  leisure  the  first  great  lessons  which  Nature 
has  to  teach.  Since  he  wrote  thus  our  towns  have  spread 
their  blackness  wider  still,  and  the  provision  of  parks  for 
the  recreation  of  our  urban  population  has  become  a  press 
ing  national  need.  And  here,  again,  the  very  word  recrea- 
tion suggests  another  unfitness  in  the  Lake  country  for 
these  purposes.  Solitude  is  as  characteristic  of  that  region 
as  beauty,  and  what  the  mass  of  mankind  need  for  their 
refreshment — most  naturally  and  justly — is  not  solitude 
but  society. 

"  The  silence  that  is  in  the  starry  sky, 
The  sleep  that  is  among  the  lonely  hills," 

is  to  them  merely  a  drawback,  to  be  overcome  by  moving 
about  in  large  masses,  and  by  congregating  in  chosen  re* 


xn.]         LETTERS  ON  THE  PROJECTED  RAILWAY.  171 

sorts  with  vehement  hilarity.  It  would  be  most  unreason- 
able to  wish  to  curtail  the  social  expansion  of  men  whose 
lives  are  for  the  most  part  passed  in  a  monotonous  round 
of  toil.  But  is  it  kinder  and  wiser — from  any  point  of 
view  but  the  railway  shareholder's — to  allure  them  into 
excursion  trains  by  the  prestige  of  a  scenery  which  is  to 
them  (as  it  was  to  all  classes  a  century  or  two  ago)  at  best 
indifferent,  or  to  provide  them  near  at  hand  with  their 
needed  space  for  rest  and  play,  not  separated  from  their 
homes  by  hours  of  clamour  and  crowding,  nor  broken  up 
by  barren  precipices,  nor  drenched  with  sweeping  storm  ? 

Unquestionably  it  is  the  masses  whom  we  have  first  to 
consider.  Sooner  than  that  the  great  mass  of  the  dwellers 
in  towns  should  be  debarred  from  the  influences  of  Nature 
— sooner  than  that  they  should  continue  for  another  cen- 
tury to  be  debarred  as  now  they  are — it  might  be  better 
that  Cumbrian  statesmen  and  shepherds  should  be  turned 
into  innkeepers  and  touts,  and  that  every  poet,  artist, 
dreamer  in  England  should  be  driven  to  seek  his  solitude 
at  the  North  Pole.  But  it  is  the  mere  futility  of  sentiment 
to  pretend  that  there  need  be  any  real  collision  of  interests 
here.  There  is  space  enough  in  England  yet  for  all  to  en- 
joy in  their  several  manners,  if  those  who  have  the  power 
would  leave  some  unpolluted  rivers,  and  some  unblighted 
fields,  for  the  health  and  happiness  of  the  factory-hand, 
whose  toil  is  for  their  fortunes,  and  whose  degradation  is 
their  shame. 

Wordsworth,  while  indicating,  with  some  such  reason- 
ing as  this,  the  true  method  of  promoting  the  education 
of  the  mass  of  men  in  natural  joys,  was  assuredly  not  like- 
ly to  forget  that  in  every  class,  even  the  poorest,  are  found 
exceptional  spirits  which  some  inbred  power  has  attuned 
already  to  the  stUlness  and  glory  of  the  hills.  In  what 
M     8*  25 


172  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

way  the  interests  of  such  men  may  best  be  consulted,  he 
has  discussed  in  the  following  passage : 

" '  0  Nature,  a'  thy  shows  an'  forms 
To  feeling  pensive  hearts  hae  charms !' 

So  exclaimed  the  Ayrshire  ploughman,  speaking  of  ordi- 
nary rural  nature  under  the  varying  influences  of  the  sea- 
sons ;  and  the  sentiment  has  found  an  echo  in  the  bosoms 
of  thousands  in  as  humble  a  condition  as  he  himself  was 
when  he  gave  vent  to  it.  But  then  they  were  feeling,  pen- 
sive hearts — men  who  would  be  among  the  first  to  lament 
the  facility  with  which  they  had  approached  this  region,  by 
a  sacrifice  of  so  much  of  its  quiet  and  beauty  as,  from  the 
intrusion  of  a  railway,  would  be  inseparable.  What  can, 
in  truth,  be  more  absurd  than  that  either  rich  or  poor 
should  be  spared  the  trouble  of  travelling  by  the  high 
roads  over  so  short  a  space,  according  to  their  respective 
means,  if  the  unavoidable  consequence  must  be  a  great  dis- 
turbance of  the  retirement,  and,  in  many  places,  a  destruc- 
tion of  the  beauty,  of  the  country  which  the  parties  are 
come  in  search  of  ?  Would  not  this  be  pretty  much  like 
the  child's  cutting  up  his  drum  to  learn  where  the  sound 
came  from  ?" 

The  truth  of  these  words  has  become  more  conspicuous 
since  Wordsworth's  day.  The  Lake  country  is  now  both 
engirdled  and  intersected  with  railways.  The  point  to 
which  even  the  poorest  of  genuine  lovers  of  the  mountains 
could  desire  that  his  facilities  of  cheap  locomotion  should 
be  carried  has  been  not  only  reached  but  far  overpassed. 
If  he  is  not  content  to  dismount  from  his  railway  car- 
riage at  Coniston,  or  Seascale,  or  Bowness — at  Penrith,  or 
Troutbeck,  or  Keswick  —  and  to  move  at  eight  miles  an 
hour  in  a  coach,  or  at  four  miles  an  hour  on  foot,  while  he 


XII.]  LETTERS  ON  THE  PROJECTED  RAILWAY.  173 

studies  that  small  intervenicg  tract  of  country,  of  which 
every  mile  is  a  separate  gem — when,  we  may  ask,  is  he  to 
dismount  ?  what  is  he  to  study  ?  Or  is  nothing  to  be  ex- 
pected from  nature  but  a  series  of  dissolving  views  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  feel  sanguine  as  to  the  future  of  this 
irreplaceable  national  possession.  A  real  delight  in  sce- 
nery— apart  from  the  excitements  of  sport  or  mountain- 
eering, for  which  Scotland  and  Switzerland  are  better  suit- 
ed than  Cumberland — is  still  too  rare  a  thing  among  the 
wealthier  as  among  the  poorer  classes  to  be  able  to  com- 
pete with  such  a  power  as  the  Railway  Interest.  And  it  is 
little  likely  now  that  the  Government  of  England  should 
act  with  regard  to  this  district  as  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  has  acted  with  regard  to  the  Yosemite  and 
Yellowstone  valleys,  and  guard  as  a  national  possession 
the  beauty  which  will  become  rarer  and  more  precious 
with  every  generation  of  men.  But  it  is  in  any  case  de- 
sirable that  Wordsworth's  unanswered  train  of  reasoning 
on  the  subject  should  be  kept  in  view  —  that  it  should 
be  clearly  understood  that  the  one  argument  for  making 
more  railways  through  the  Lakes  is  that  they  may  possi- 
bly pay;  while  it  is  certain  that  each  railway  extension 
is  injurious  to  the  peasantry  of  the  district,  and  to  all 
visitors  who  really  care  for  its  scenery,  while  conferring 
no  benefit  on  the  crowds  who  are  dragged  many  miles  to 
what  they  do  not  enjoy,  instead  of  having  what  they  re- 
ally want  secured  to  them,  as  it  ought  to  be,  at  their  own 
doors. 

It  is  probable  that  all  this  will  continue  to  be  said  in 
vain.  Railways,  and  mines,  and  waterworks  will  have 
their  way,  till  injury  has  become  destruction.  The  natu- 
ral sanctuary  of  England,  the  nurse  of  simple  and  noble 
natures, "  the  last  region  which  Astraea  touches  with  fly- 


174  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

ing  feet,"  will  be  sacrificed  —  it  is  scarcely  possible  to 
doubt  it — to  the  greed  of  gain.  We  must  seek  our  con- 
solation in  the  thought  that  no  outrage  on  nature  is  mor- 
tal ;  that  the  ever- springing  affections  of  men  create  for 
themselves  continually  some  fresh  abode,  and  inspire  some 
new  landscape  with  a  consecrating  history,  and,  as  it  were, 
with  a  silent  soul.  Yet  it  will  be  long  ere  round  some 
other  lakes,  upon  some  other  hill,  shall  cluster  memories 
as  pure  and  high  as  those  which  hover  still  around  Rydal 
and  Grasmere,  and  on  Helvellyn's  windy  summit,  "  and  by 
Glenridding  Screes  and  low  Glencoign." 

With  this  last  word  of  protest  and  warning — uttered, 
as  it  may  seem  to  the  reader,  with  unexpected  force  and 
conviction  from  out  of  the  tranquillity  of  a  serene  old 
age — Wordsworth's  mission  is  concluded.  The  prophecy 
of  his  boyhood  is  fulfilled,  and  the  "  dear  native  regions  " 
whence  his  dawning  genius  rose  have  been  gilded  by  the 
last  ray  of  its  declining  fire.  There  remains  but  the  do- 
mestic chronicle  of  a  few  more  years  of  mingled  sadness 
and  peace.  And  I  will  first  cite  a  characteristic  passage 
from  a  letter  to  his  American  correspondent,  Mr.  Reed, 
describing  his  presentation  as  Laureate  to  the  Queen : 

"  The  reception  given  me  by  the  Queen  at  her  ball  was 
most  gracious.  Mrs.  Everett,  the  wife  of  your  Minister, 
among  many  others,  was  a  witness  to  it,  without  knowing 
who  I  was.  It  moved  her  to  the  shedding  of  tears.  This 
effect  was  in  part  produced,  I  suppose,  by  American  habits 
of  feeling,  as  pertaining  to  a  republican  government.  To 
see  a  gray-haired  man  of  seventy-five  years  of  age  kneel- 
ing down  in  a  large  assembly  to  kiss  the  hand  of  a  young 
woman  is  a  sight  for  which  institutions  essentially  demo- 
cratic do  not  prepare  a  spectator  of  either  sex,  and  must 
naturally  place  the   opinions  upon  which  a  republic  is 


XII.]  CONCLUSION.  175 

founded,  and  the  sentiments  which  support  it,  in  strong 
contrast  with  a  government  based  and  upheld  as  ours  is." 

In  the  same  letter  the  poet  introduces  an  ominous  al- 
lusion to  the  state  of  his  daughter's  health.  Dora,  his 
only  daughter  who  survived  childhood,  was  the  darling  of 
Wordsworth's  age.  In  her  wayward  gaiety  and  bright 
intelligence  there  was  much  to  remind  him  of  his  sister's 
youth ;  and  his  clinging  nature  wound  itself  round  this 
new  Dora  as  tenderly  as  it  had  ever  done  round  her  who 
was  now  only  the  object  of  loving  compassion  and  care. 
In  1841  Dora  Wordsworth  married  Mr.  Quillinan,  an  ex- 
officer  of  the  Guards,  and  a  man  of  great  literary  taste 
and  some  original  power.  In  1821  he  had  settled  for  a 
time  in  the  vale  of  Rydal,  mainly  for  the  sake  of  Words- 
worth's society ;  and  ever  since  then  he  had  been  an  in- 
timate and  valued  friend.  He  had  been  married  before, 
but  his  wife  died  in  1822,  leaving  him  two  daughters,  one 
of  whom  was  named  from  the  murmuring  Rotha,  and  was 
god-child  of  the  poet.  Shortly  after  marriage,  Dora  Quil- 
linan's  health  began  to  fail.  In  1845  the  Quillinans  went 
to  Oporto  in  search  of  health,  and  returned  in  1846,  in  the 
trust  that  it  was  regained.  But  in  July,  1847,  Dora  Quil- 
linan died  at  Rydal,  and  left  her  father  to  mourn  for  his 
few  remaining  years  his  "  immeasurable  loss." 

The  depth  and  duration  of  Wordsworth's  grief,  in  such 
bereavements  as  fell  to  his  lot,  was  such  as  to  make  his 
friends  thankful  that  his  life  had,  on  the  whole,  been 
guided  through  ways  of  so  profound  a  peace. 

Greatly,  indeed,  have  they  erred  who  have  imagined 
him  as  cold,  or  even  as  by  nature  tranquil.  "What 
strange  workings,"  writes  one  from  Rydal  Mount,  when 
the  poet  was  in  his  sixty -ninth  year  —  "what  strange 
workings  are  there  in  his  great  mind !      How  fearfully 


1Y6  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

strong  are  all  His  feelings  and  affections !  If  his  intellect 
had  been  less  powerful  they  must  have  destroyed  him 
long  ago."  Such,  in  fact,  was  the  impression  which  he 
gave  to  those  who  knew  him  best  throughout  life.  The 
look  of  premature  age,  which  De  Quincey  insists  on ;  the 
furrowed  and  rugged  countenance,  the  brooding  intensity 
of  the  eye,  the  bursts  of  anger  at  the  report  of  evil  do- 
ings, the  lonely  and  violent  roamings  over  the  mountains 
— all  told  of  a  strong  absorption  and  a  smothered  fire. 
His  own  description  of  himself,  in  his  Imitation  of  the 
Castle  of  Indolence,  unexpected  as  it  is  by  the  ordinary 
reader,  carries  for  those  who  knew  him  the  stamp  of  truth : 

"  Full  many  a  time,  upon  a  stormy  night, 
His  voice  came  to  us  from  the  neighbouring  height : 

Oft  did  we  see  him  driving  full  in  view 
At  mid-day  when  the  sun  was  shining  bright ; 
What  ill  was  on  him,  what  he  had  to  do, 
A  mighty  wonder  bred  among  our  quiet  crew. 

Ah !  piteous  sight  it  was  to  see  this  Man 

When  he  came  back  to  us,  a  withered  flower — 

Or  like  a  sinful  creature,  pale  and  wan. 

Down  would  he  sit ;  and  without  strength  or  power 
Look  at  the  common  grass  from  hour  to  hour : 

And  oftentimes,  how  long  I  fear  to  say. 

Where  apple-trees  in  blossom  made  a  bower, 

Retired  in  that  sunshiny  shade  he  lay ; 

And,  like  a  naked  Indian,  slept  himself  away. 

Great  wonder  to  our  gentle  tribe  it  was 

Whenever  from  our  valley  he  withdrew ; 
For  happier  soul  no  living  creature  has 

Than  he  had,  being  here  the  long  day  through. 

Some  thought  he  was  a  lover,  and  did  woo : 
Some  thought  far  worse  of  him,  and  judged  him  wrong : 

But  Verse  was  what  he  had  been  wedded  to  j 


xn.]  CONCLUSION.  '  17Y 

And  his  own  mind  did  like  a  tempest  strong 

Come  to  him  thus,  and  drove  the  weary  wight  along." 

An  excitement  which  vents  itself  in  bodily  exercise  car- 
ries its  own  sedative  with  it.  And  in  comparing  Words- 
worth's nature  with  that  of  other  poets  whose  career  has 
been  less  placid,  we  may  say  that  he  was  perhaps  not  less 
excitable  than  they,  but  that  it  was  his  constant  endeavour 
to  avoid  all  excitement  save  of  the  purely  poetic  kind; 
and  that  the  outward  circumstances  of  his  life — his  me- 
diocrity of  fortune,  happy  and  early  marriage,  and  absence 
of  striking  personal  charm — made  it  easy  for  him  to  ad- 
here to  a  method  of  life  which  was,  in  the  truest  sense  of 
the  term,  stoic — stoic  alike  in  its  practical  abstinences  and 
in  its  calm  and  grave  ideal.  Purely  poetic  excitement, 
however,  is  hard  to  maintain  at  a  high  point ;  and  the  de- 
scription quoted  above  of  the  voice  which  came  through 
the  stormy  night  should  be  followed  by  another — by  the 
same  candid  and  self-picturing  hand — which  represents  the 
same  habits  in  a  quieter  light. 

"Nine -tenths  of  my  verses,"  says  the  poet,  in  1843, 
"have  been  murmured  out  in  the  open  air.  One  day  a 
stranger,  having  walked  round  the  garden  and  grounds  of 
Rydal  Mount,  asked  of  one  of  the  female  servants,  who 
happened  to  be  at  the  door,  permission  to  see  her  master's 
study.  '  This,'  said  she,  leading  him  forward, '  is  my  mas- 
ter's library,  where  he  keeps  his  books,  but  his  study  is  out- 
of-doors.'  After  a  long  absence  from  home,  it  has  more 
than  once  happened  that  some  one  of  my  cottage  neigh- 
bours (not  of  the  double-coach-house  cottages)  has  said, 
*  Well,  there  he  is !  we  are  glad  to  hear  him  booing  about 
again.' " 

Wordsworth's  health,  steady  and  robust  for  the  most 
part,  indicated  the  same  restrained  excitability.     While 


178  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

he  was  well  able  to  resist  fatigue,  exposure  to  weather,  &c., 
there  were,  in  fact,  three  things  which  his  peculiar  consti- 
tution made  it  difficult  for  him  to  do,  and  unfortunately 
those  three  things  were  reading,  writing,  and  the  compo- 
sition of  poetry.  A  frequently  recurring  inflammation  of 
the  eyes,  caught  originally  from  exposure  to  a  cold  wind 
when  overheated  by  exercise,  but  always  much  aggravated 
by  mental  excitement,  sometimes  prevented  his  reading  for 
months  together.  His  symptoms  when  he  attempted  to 
hold  the  pen  are  thus  described  in  a  published  letter  to 
Sir  George  Beaumont  (1803) : 

"  I  do  not  know  from  what  cause  it  is,  but  during  the 
last  three  years  I  have  never  had  a  pen  in  my  hand  for  five 
minutes  before  my  whole  frame  becomes  a  bundle  of  un- 
easiness; a  perspiration  starts  out  all  over  me,  and  my 
chest  is  oppressed  in  a  manner  which  I  cannot  describe." 
While  as  to  the  labour  of  composition  his  sister  says  (Sep- 
tember, 1800) :  "  He  writes  with  so  much  feeling  and  agi- 
tation that  it  brings  on  a  sense  of  pain  and  internal  weak- 
ness about  his  left  side  and  stomach,  which  now  often 
makes  it  impossible  for  him  to  write  when  he  is,  in  mind 
and  feelings,  in  such  a  state  that  he  could  do  it  without 
difficulty." 

But  turning  to  the  brighter  side  of  things — to  the  joys 
rather  than  the  pains  of  the  sensitive  body  and  spirit — we 
find  in  Wordsworth's  later  years  much  of  happiness  on 
which  to  dwell.  The  memories  which  his  name  recalls 
are  for  the  most  part  of  thoughtful  kindnesses,  of  simple- 
hearted  joy  in  feeling  himself  at  last  appreciated,  of  tender 
sympathy  with  the  young.  Sometimes  it  is  a  recollection 
of  some  London  drawing-room,  where  youth  and  beauty 
surrounded  the  rugged  old  man  with  an  eager  admiration 
which  fell  on  no  unwilling  heart.     Sometimes  it  is  a  story 


xn.]  CONCLUSION.  179 

of  some  assemblage  of  young  and  old,  rich  and  poor,  from 
all  the  neighbouring  houses  and  cottages,  at  Rydal  Mount, 
to  keep  the  aged  poet's  birthday  with  a  simple  feast  and 
rustic  play.  Sometimes  it  is  a  report  of  some  fireside 
gathering  at  Lancrigg  or  Foxhow,  where  the  old  man  grew 
eloquent  as  he  talked  of  Burns  and  Coleridge,  of  Homer 
and  Virgil,  of  the  true  aim  of  poetry  and  the  true  happi- 
ness of  man.  Or  we  are  told  of  some  last  excursion  to 
well -loved  scenes;  of  holly -trees  planted  by  the  poet's 
hands  to  stimulate  nature's  decoration  on  the  craggy 
hill. 

Such  are  the  memories  of  those  who  best  remember  him. 
To  those  who  were  young  children  while  his  last  years 
went  by  he  seemed  a  kind  of  mystical  embodiment  of  the 
lakes  and  mountains  round  him — a  presence  without  which 
they  would  not  be  what  they  were.  And  now  he  is  gone, 
and  their  untouched  and  early  charm  is  going  too. 

"  Heu,  tua  nobis 
Paene  simul  tecum  solatia  rapta,  Menalca !" 

Rydal  Mount,  of  which  he  had  at  one  time  feared  to  be 
deprived,  was  his  to  the  end.  He  still  paced  the  terrace- 
walks — but  now  the  flat  terrace  oftener  than  the  sloping 
one — whence  the  eye  travels  to  lake  and  mountain  across 
a  tossing  gulf  of  green.  The  doves  that  so  long  had  been 
wont  to  answer  with  murmurs  of  their  own  to  his  "  half- 
formed  melodies"  still  hung  in  the  trees  above  his  path- 
way ;  and  many  who  saw  him  there  must  have  thought  of 
the  lines  in  which  his  favourite  poet  congratulates  himself 
that  he  has  not  been  exiled  from  his  home. 

"  Calm  as  thy  sacred  streams  thy  years  shall  flow ; 
Groves  which  thy  youth  has  known  thine  age  shall  know ; 


180  WORDSWORTH.  [chap. 

Here,  as  of  old,  Hyblaean  bees  shall  twine 
Their  mazy  murmur  into  dreams  of  thine — 
Still  from  the  hedge's  willow-bloom  shall  come 
Through  summer  silences  a  slumberous  hum — 
Still  from  the  crag  shall  lingering  winds  prolong 
The  half-heard  cadence  of  the  woodman's  song — 
While  evermore  the  doves,  thy  love  and  care, 
Fill  the  tall  elms  with  sighing  in  the  air." 

Yet  words  like  these  fail  to  give  the  solemnity  of  his 
last  years  —  the  sense  of  grave  retrospection,  of  humble 
self-judgment,  of  hopeful  looking  to  the  end.  "  It  is  in- 
deed a  deep  satisfaction,"  he  writes,  near  the  close  of  life, 
"  to  hope  and  believe  that  my  poetry  will  be,  while  it  lasts, 
a  help  to  the  cause  of  virtue  and  truth,  especially  among 
the  young.  As  for  myself,  it  seems  now  of  little  moment 
how  long  I  may  be  remembered.  When  a  man  pushes  oflE 
in  his  little  boat  into  the  great  seas  of  Infinity  and  Eter- 
nity, it  surely  signifies  little  how  long  he  is  kept  in  sight 
by  watchers  from  the  shore." 

And  again,  to  an  intimate  friend, "  Worldly-minded  I  am 
not ;  on  the  contrary,  my  wish  to  benefit  those  within  my 
humble  sphere  strengthens  seemingly  in  exact  proportion  to 
my  inability  to  realize  those  wishes.  What  I  lament  most 
is  that  the  spirituality  of  my  nature  does  not  expand  and 
rise  the  nearer  I  approach  the  grave,  as  yours  does,  and  as 
it  fares  with  my  beloved  partner." 

The  aged  poet  might  feel  the  loss  of  some  vividness  of 
emotion,  but  his  thoughts  dwelt  more  and  more  constant- 
ly on  the  unseen  world.  One  of  the  images  which  recurs 
oftenest  to  his  friends  is  that  of  the  old  man  as  he  would 
stand  against  the  window  of  the  dining-room  at  Rydal 
Mount  and  read  the  Psalms  and  Lessons  for  the  day;  of 
the  tall  bowed  figure  and  the  silvery  hair;  of  the  deep 


XII.]  CONCLUSION.  181 

voice  which  always  faltered  when  among  the  prayers  he 
came  to  the  words  which  give  thanks  for  those  "  who  have 
departed  this  life  in  Thy  faith  and  fear." 

There  is  no  need  to  prolong  the  narration.  As  healthy 
infancy  is  the  same  for  all,  so  the  old  age  of  all  good  men 
brings  philosopher  and  peasant  once  more  together,  to 
meet  with  the  same  thoughts  the  inevitable  hour.  What- 
ever the  well-fought  fight  may  have  been,  rest  is  the  same 
for  all. 

"  Retirement  then  mignt  hourly  iook 
Upon  a  soothing  scene  ; 
Age  steal  to  his  allotted  nook 

Contented  and  serene ; 
With  heart  as  calm  as  lakes  that  sleep, 

In  frosty  moonlight  glistening, 
Or  mountain  torrents,  where  they  creep 
Uong  a  channel  smooth  and  deep. 

To  their  own  far-off  murmurs  listening." 

What  touch  has  given  to  these  lines  their  impress  of  an 
unfathomable  peace  ?  For  there  speaks  from  them  a  tran- 
quillity which  seems  to  overcome  our  souls ;  which  makes 
us  feel  in  the  midst  of  toil  and  passion  that  we  are  dis- 
quieting ourselves  in  vain ;  that  we  are  travelling  to  a  re- 
gion where  these  things  shall  not  be ;  that "  so  shall  im- 
moderate fear  leave  us,  and  inordinate  love  shall  die." 

Wordsworth's  last  days  were  absolutely  tranquil.  A 
cold  caught  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  walk  brought  on  a 
pleurisy.  He  lay  for  some  weeks  in  a  state  of  passive 
weakness ;  and  at  last  Mrs.  Wordsworth  said  to  him, 
"  William,  you  are  going  to  Dora."  "  He  made  no  reply 
at  the  time,  and  the  words  seem  to  have  passed  unheeded ; 
indeed,  it  was  not  certain  that  they  had  been  even  heard. 
More  than  twenty-four  hours  afterwards  one  of  his  nieces 


182  WORDSWORTH.  [chap.  xii. 

came  into  his  room,  and  was  drawing  aside  the  curtain  of 
his  chamber,  and  then,  as  if  awakening  from  a  quiet  sleep, 
he  said,  *  Is  that  Dora?'" 

On  Tuesday,  April  23,  1850,  as  his  favourite  cuckoo- 
clock  struck  the  hour  of  noon,  his  spirit  passed  away. 
His  body  was  buried,  as  he  had  wished,  in  Grasmere  church- 
yard. Around  him  the  dalesmen  of  Grasmere  lie  beneath 
the  shade  of  sycamore  and  yew;  and  Rotha's  murmur 
mourns  the  pausing  of  that ''  music  sweeter  than  her  own." 
And  surely  of  him,  if  of  any  one,  we  may  think  as  of  a 
man  who  was  so  in  accord  with  nature,  so  at  one  with  the 
very  soul  of  things,  that  there  can  be  no  Mansion  of  the 
Universe  which  shall  not  be  to  him  a  home,  no  Governor 
who  will  not  accept  him  among  his  servants,  and  satisfy 
him  with  love  and  peace. 


THE    END. 


,  14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

I^L^uK"^  *^"^  ^1  ?^«  ^«  date  stamped  below 


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